#originally a bjork quote

[snufkinsnogger]

[krakenbait]

kraken bait 2: no stats just vibes

hello and welcome back to another installment of the kraken bait list, where i make random predictions about who i think is ending up in seattle come the expansion draft! i’ve got a special edition today, as i didn’t just do a few players. no, i did an entire mock expansion draft, with a player pulled from each of the 30 teams participating. i followed the expansion draft rules and had the help of corwin @chaos-hockey as my CapFriendly consultant (and solver of indecision), but for the most part, this is, as The Broadscast says, no stats, just vibes.

so without further ado, let’s get into it!

Anaheim Ducks: Danton Heinen 

thank @charliemashavoy for this idea 

Arizona Coyotes: Lawson Crouse 

i don’t know many yotes players, so might as well pick one whose name i at least recognize

Boston Bruins: Jake DeBrusk 

corwin and i went back and forth on this one a little. it was between debrusk and trent frederic, but corwin as the bruins fan said frederic was too good to give up

Buffalo Sabres: Anders Bjork 

this slot was occupied by taylor hall until he got traded, so why not the guy hall got traded for?

Calgary Flames: Matthew Tkachuk 

i’m gonna throw them under the bus- this one was all corwin. it seems pretty unusual to me that the flames would leave tkachuk exposed, but hey, weird things happen, i guess

Carolina Hurricanes: Brock McGinn 

this slot was originally occupied by haydn fleury until he got traded. finding a replacement was a bit tricky since i don’t know a whole lot about the canes depth type players, but corwin and i settled on mcginn

Chicago Blackhawks: Dylan Strome 

one of my original kraken bait picks! (thanks @jakejuentzel) corwin argued with me on this one (they thought it should be adam gaudette), but again, no stats just vibes

Colorado Avalanche: Ryan Graves 

i like gravy a lot, but with the avs defensive depth, he’ll definitely be exposed. however, he’s a good enough player that seattle taking him is a good possibility. from one of my favorite teams to another!

Columbus Blue Jackets: Boone Jenner 

similar deal to the canes. i originally had one of the goalies here, but apparently elvis isn’t eligible for the expansion draft, and i also don’t really know the jackets roster. corwin tossed out jenner and i said sure

Dallas Stars: Jamie Oleksiak 

don’t have much commentary here. the vibes are right

Detroit Red Wings: Christian Djoos 

isn’t christian juice just wine? (i’m sorry i’m sorry)

Edmonton Oilers: Tyson Barrie 

another original kraken bait! it just seems right

Florida Panthers: Mackenzie Weegar

i do not know the panthers at all and neither does corwin, but i recognized this name and decided to go for it. i will take advice from a panthers consultant for the next edition of this list if you are upset

Los Angeles Kings: Trevor Moore 

i don’t know who this is but it seems right enough

Minnesota Wild: Matt Dumba 

i kind of protested this one a little because i like dumba as a player, but i could see him getting exposed and taken by seattle

Montreal Canadiens: Jesperi Kotkaniemi 

it took me three tries to spell that right. oops.

Nashville Predators: Juuse Saros 

corwin and i disagreed on this one again. i thought saros would be the goalie the preds protect since he’s significantly younger than rinne, but corwin argued the preds like rinne too much to leave him exposed (not that i could see seattle taking rinne), so i gave them this one

New Jersey Devils: Nathan Bastian 

OUCH OUCH IT HURTS the idea of nate being separated from mikey in the expansion draft is painful. but i was having a tough time thinking of the devils expansion draft situation so corwin tossed out a name. to quote them, “ron francis doesn’t care about your feelings!”

New York Islanders: Sebastian Aho 

the inferior sebastian aho gets shipped to seattle. it makes sense.

New York Rangers: Kevin Rooney 

it just seems right for this former devil to rejoin the cryptid gang with the kraken.

Ottawa Senators: Victor Mete 

i don’t know a whole lot about him aside from the fact that the habs let him go on waivers, but he seems like the kraken bait type

Philadelphia Flyers: Nolan Patrick 

again with the controversy! and again i’m blaming corwin. this seems kind of far-fetched to me, but they were adamant, so...

Pittsburgh Penguins: Brandon Tanev 

maybe he’ll find some more ghosts in seattle

San Jose Sharks: Mario Ferraro 

sharks fan friends i’m sorry! it feels right though. (and just imagine how good @18minutemajor‘s kraken drawings would look...)

St. Louis Blues: Jacob de la Rose 

i could not tell you who this is. i am also accepting blues consultation

Tampa Bay Lighting: Blake Coleman 

pickles to seattle has become my favorite kraken bait theory of late and i am not getting off this boat anytime soon

Toronto Maple Leafs: Travis Dermott 

i don’t know much about the leafs so i’m trusting corwin’s judgement here

Vancouver Canucks: Jake Virtanen 

this slot was originally occupied by adam gaudette before he got traded, but i feel like virtanen has equally the right vibes

Washington Capitals: Vitek Vanecek

the only thing i really know about the caps roster is that they’re old as dirt, so this seems about right

Winnipeg Jets: Laurent Brossoit

i’m still a little iffy on this one but corwin and i couldn’t think of anyone better. i think we can do better on the goalie situation for the next go-around though...

and that is that for kraken bait: no stats just vibes edition! 

i will probably do another list soon, maybe around the end of the regular season, so if you have strong kraken bait opinions or just know a team that i don’t, drop me an ask or a DM and i’ll cite you as a kraken bait consultant on the next list!

[loserdudes]

Hi sorry I’m new and sorry if this is a stupid question but why does everyone constantly talk about what happened with Debrusk? I know there was an article with a bad name but that’s a bout it lol. Sorry if you posted things about this before or got asks about it.

alright so you sent this the other night during the canucks game and it seems like this somehow has become a topic of conversation again which. dont know why people who dont care about the bruins think they know anything (not you specifically anon) but ill break it down. this is very long and will have a tl;dr at the end

so this started in about mid may when a bruins reporter for the athletic posted an article about how the bruins like to chirp jake debrusk. this became a huge thing like bigger than anyone couldve thought it would be mostly because the language used in the article made it seem a lot worse than it really is in order to get attention. the original title of the article (changed fairly quickly after a lot of correct backlash) was “the bruins’ dressing room whipping boy: why everyone abuses jake debrusk” this title is awful for a number of reasons and the timing of the article was also awful given that it was fairly soon after akim aliu posted his article titled “hockey is not for everyone” about the racism he faced in the nhl and detailed much worse abuse that happened to him by teammates.

important things to note here: jake debrusk is white, his dad was an nhler, contrary to what became a popular tweet when this article came out said his first language is english, and he came into the nhl in 2017 at around the same time as sean kuraly, matt grzelcyk, charlie mcavoy, and anders bjork

here are some quotes that i think are some of the most important from the article, grouped by who said them and not necessarily in the order the article puts them in

sean kuraly: “every group of friends has that. you just hope it’s a healthy way about it. in his case, it is. he can handle it. he likes it.” “but at the same time, still one of the best teammates i’ve ever had.”

matt grzelcyk: “honesty, we rib him for anything. he senses that. he does a good job of making fun of himself before you can make fun of him. he probably deflects a lot that way.”

chris wagner: “i don’t know if he thinks before he speaks. and i wouldn’t say he’s the brightest bulb. he means well. so that’s why we give it to him.” 

anders bjork: “on all-star break, he got sunburned. he’s asking where he can get some aveeoli. stuff like that where you’re like, what?!’ sometimes they stick on and we keep saying them. tons of stuff, words and phrases like that, where he ends up saying them.”

brandon carlo: “i think it’s just his quirkiness and his personality. he’s not a shy kid, by any means. his outgoingness enables that. the way he’ll react to certain stuff. if he didn’t give you a reaction, maybe it wouldn’t be as prominent. but you know there’s going to be a funny reaction when you chirp him.”

jake debrusk: “it seems like people are always chirping me. i don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. it seems like they miss me. i’ll take credit for that. i’ll say it’s a good thing.” “i feel i’m just an easy target. i’m a nice guy. make some rivalries here and there. but i definitely do get a lot of abuse, yes. i always have. i always have, ever since junior, even. especially as a 16-year-old rookie. even when i was a veteran.” “there’s certain guys you can’t really chirp back. like if bergy gives you a good chirp, it’s almost like you’ve got to accept it. because bergy’s god.” “you can see it after practice. guys come and jump me. they’re starting to team up on me because of my one-liners. they’re trying to get through. but they just can’t. that’s what pisses them off the most and makes me the most happy. they’ve tried my hair. they’ve tried my shoes, my style. they’re trying different areas.” “it’s funny. guys will give me a hard time about it. they’ll be like, ‘we don’t know what you’re saying. we don’t understand.’ then, you know, the months go by. they start saying it. now it’s kind of a thing. that’s when you know. slang words that i’ve brought up, because i know that it’s me because no one else says stuff like that, they come up around the room. that’s really rewarding.” “it is fun. it kind of spices it up too. guys will have good chirps. if you can’t laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at?”

i tried to include all of jake’s quotes that i thought were relevant so that’s why his section is so long but one i didn’t include is about charlie mcavoy: “charlie mcavoy takes it a little too personally sometimes. he doesn’t know if i’m kidding or not, even though he’s giving it to me. sometimes i bring up certain things with him, he gets a little fishy.” this quote is really key to me because it shows that jake, and the rest of the bruins, know when to hold back and aren’t just needlessly being cruel to their teammates

the bolded quote by jake is also an important one for me because it shows that friend group dynamic where someone says something dumb and then gets made fun of before everyone else starts using it too which is pretty much the case for the bruins

finally for my knowledge of the bruins friend group dynamic: i have watched almost every episode of behind the b that jake and most of the bruins mentioned/quoted have been on. the bruins are my number one team. i watch everything they put out and keep track of most of the guys on social media. these guys, especially the young ones, are all really close and are frequently seen interacting with each other inside and outside of team settings and even going on vacations together. its pretty easy to guess that jake has many of the bruins instagram notifications on as last summer former bruins teammate danton heinen got hacked and jake commented on the post almost immediately. you don’t do that for people you can’t stand being around and you definitely don’t spend your one week of vacation time during the season with them if you’re really that miserable.

if you are not a bruins fan it’s pretty easy to look at cherry picked quotes from a poorly written article (that would have been written in an entirely different tone had this actually been a problem) by an author that a number of bruins fans have problems with and think that jake debrusk is being bullied and needs to be “saved” from the bruins. none of that is the case. he enjoys playing in boston and being with his teammates. if he isn’t signed in boston for next season it isn’t because he needed to escape his teammates or whatever it’s because the team can’t afford him. that’s it.

the bruins have said many times that they’re a close team. after rask opted out yesterday in the middle of a playoff series every guy had nothing but good things to say. they constantly say things about how much they love each other and how close they are as a team. the bruins really genuinely love being bruins and its one of the things that makes them such a fun team to watch. you can infer all you want about guys that left the team, their circumstances, and jakes but nothing will change the facts

tl;dr: the bruins chirp jake debrusk, a legacy nhler, but he doesn’t have a problem with it and enjoys when they actually end up things they say even if they chirp him for it initially. the bruins love jake and jake loves the bruins and the entire situation is basically just *john mulaney voice* oh you mean like having friends? even if people without knowledge of the bruins want to blow it out of proportion

[popmusicu]

Why Rain on me (remix) is the latin music we deserve.

Within the not so new controversy about the Latin Grammy, the question once again emerges ¿What is good latin representation in music?.

Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande are one of the biggest and highest grossing stars on the US pop charts. Both signed a feat in the dance pop song "Rain on me" for last year's Gaga's album "Chromatica".

Breaking nº1 in many countries, collecting 338M views on Youtube and earning them a grammy for the best pop duo by the time of this post, there's no doubt about the single's comercial success, but honestly the combination of both names is pretty much one of the safest blueprints for a industry hit you could make. The interesting part came this year with the announcement of a remix album dramatically named "Dawn of chromatica".

Renovating itself in spirit, Dawn of chromatica became so much more than the usual remix album. During the first listen it became apparent how Gaga gave the newest feat artists almost full liberty to alter her originals.

Within strong names associated with the hyperpop genre such as Charli XCX, Shygirl, Dorian Electra and one spectacular display of "brega pop"(a northern brazilian/caribean rythm) by Pabllo Vittar at the "Fun Tonight" remix, the aclamed producer and venezuelan artist Alejandra Ghersi, better known as "Arca", made herself a spot in history with one of the bravest and most challenging mainstream remixes of all time. 

"Rain on me (Arca remix)" first seconds came with a instant clash of one of Arca's last year collabs with Bjork, "Time", featured in her 2020 experimental/industrial pop album "Kick I". I think for the most part of Arca fans, that mixing would have been enough for a pleasant experience, but around the minute or so, between the well known Grande and Gaga's vocals an almost raw sample from Dj Yirvin "Metelo sacalo" starts playing, displacing the expectations of any latin person listening, and maybe surprising one smart US citizen or another.

Dj Yirvin is one the biggest exponents of "Changa Tuki" (also known as "Raptor House"), a homegrown electronic dance subgenre that became esential part of the club scene around the 2000's in Venezuela.

With a width of influences ranging between 90's techno, house and tribal music, "Changa Tuki" found a way to create a club music identity in the Caracas ghetto culture. Eventually dispersing as colateral damage for the Venezuelan political agenda, the subgenre is still relevant at some niche club parties around Peru and some other south american countries. 

To quote Arca's "Mequetrefe"; "ella vino caminando desde su casa, ella no toma taxi, que la vean, que la vean en las calles", Arca once again showed her discomfort not only with gender normativity but also musical taboos.

Often related with classism, ghetto music tends to be looked down in mainstream music and rarely finds their way up, usually trough some pop star that found something "cool" in a latin culture, see by example "Llorando se fue", a single by bolivian folclore group Los Kjarkas, brutally exploitated (originally without giving any sort of acknowledgment) to make the world hit known as "Lambada" and a posterior top billboard song sampling it as big as "On the floor" by Pitbull and JLO.

Arca even closes her statement with flourish and another iconic well known latin mantra; "a mover el culo" repeteadly says by the end, an iconic sentence originally popularized in 1999 in the song "Coolo" by a popular argentinian hip hop, pop rock duo called "Illya Kuryaki and the Valderramas", but then used around the 2000's as a popular catchphrase for reggaeton and latin pop verses.

Latin music at it's worst can be first world artists harnessing latin culture for it's exotical appeal, in ways as simple as Billie Eilish appearing at the cover of top latin mixes in Spotify, or as harmful as the unacknowledgment of The Kjarkas. But at it's best it can be a way to give empowerment to our often "mirada a huevo" latin american culture, a way to realize the richness between our daily creative ways of dealing with precarization, the aftermaths of colonization and our maybe economically but never culturally underdeveloped countries.

Post by Alejandro Montecinos Spotorno.

[divineknowing2021]

viewing guide

At its core, divine knowing is an exhibition about knowledge, power, and agency. It’s become a more common understanding that governments, institutions, and algorithms will manipulate the public with what information they frame as fact, fiction, or worthy of attention. Though I am early in researching this topic, I've only come across a minimal amount of mainstream discourse on how the initial threat limiting our scope of knowledge is a refusal to listen to ourselves.

In a world faced with so many threats - humans being violent toward each other, toward animals, toward the earth - it can be a bit unsettling to release the reins and allow ourselves to bear witness for a moment, as we slowly develop a deeper awareness of surrounding phenomena and happenings.  

divine knowing includes works by formally trained and self-taught artists. A majority of the artists are bisexual, non-binary, or transgender. Regardless of degree-status, gender, or sexuality, these artists have tapped into the autonomous well of self-knowing. Their artworks speak to tactics for opening up to a more perceptive mode of being. They unravel dependencies on external sources for knowledge and what we might recognize, connect with, or achieve once we do.

The installation Femme Digitale by Sierra Bagish originates from a series she began in 2017 by converting photographs of women that were taken and distributed online without the subject’s consent into paintings. Her practice at the time was concerned with female abjection. Sourcing images found via simple keywords and phrases (e.g., passed out, passed out drunk) she swathes a mass-circulated canon of internet detritus that articulates and produces aggression towards women. With her paintings, she circumvents the images’ original framing mechanisms and subverts these proliferated images through a sincere and personal lens.

These paintings divulge the blurred space between idolatry and denigration these online photos occupy, asking whose desires these images fulfill and what their propagation reveals about the culture producing them.  While Bagish's work contends with political motivations, she also remains keenly observant of form and the varying utilities of different media.

“I use the expressive potential of paint as a vehicle to intervene and challenge ideas about photography as a harbinger of the real and everyday.”

Chariot Birthday Wish is an artist and angel living in Brooklyn. They have seen The Matrix 28 times in 2 years and love horses. The tarot series included in divine knowing is their most intuitive project, something they revisit when unsure of what to work on next. The Major Arcana are composed of digital collages made from sourced images, the Minor Arcana are represented by short, poetic, interpretative texts about the cards. The series is played on shuffle, creating a unique reading for each viewer. This is a work in progress that will eventually finalize as a completed deck of digital collages available for purchase.

Chariot's work emerges from a constant consideration of apocalypse and connection. They reference technology in tandem with nature and a desire for unity. Underneath their work's surface conversation on beauty, care, and relationship exists an agenda to subtly evoke a conspiratorial anti-state mindset. Through a collective imagining of how good things could be and how good we want them to be, we might be able to reckon with how bad things are in contrast.

“I think about texting my friends from the middle of the woods...

Humans are a part of nature and we created these things. There's this Bjork quote where she says that "You can use pro tools and still be pagan." I'm really into the idea of using technology as a tool for divination and holy connection with nature. I imagine a scene; being in moss, it's absolute bliss, and then the connection of texting, sharing an image of moss with a friend, sharing that moment through cellular towers.”

The album "adding up" by thanks for coming is composed of songs Rachel Brown wrote during what they believe to be the most challenging year of their life. Rachel now looks back on this time in appreciation, recognizing they grew in ways they had never imagined. The entire year, they were committed to following their feelings to wherever it may lead.

“If I hadn't been open to following the almost indiscernible signs I was being sent, then I would have missed out on some of the most important moments in my life.”

Kimberly Consroe holds a Masters in Anthropology along with degrees in Archaeology, Literature, and History. She is currently a Research Analyst at the US Department of Commerce. Her artwork is a passionate escape from a hectic professional life and touches on themes of feminism and nature.

Her works begin as general ideas; their narrative complexity growing with the amount of time she invests in making each one. Her decoupage process starts with cutting hundreds, if not thousands, pieces of paper. The accumulation of clippings sourced from vintage and current-day magazines overlap to tell a story. In Domestication, Kimberly borrows submissive female figures from found images of Ryan Mcguinness's work and places them in a position of power.

“I believe intuition is associated with emotion and experience. It is wisdom and fear, empathy and outrage, distrust and familiarity. It is what we know before we know it. This relates to my artwork in that, from beginning to end, there is never one complete idea concerning the outcome: it is a personal journey. It emerges from an ephemeral narrative that coalesces into a definitive story.”

Anabelle DeClement is a photographer who primarily works with film and is interested in relationships as they exist within a frame. She is drawn to the mystery of the mundane. Intuition exists in her practice as a feeling of urgency and the decision to act on it  ---  a drive often used to describe street photography where the camera catches unexpected moments in an urban environment. Anabelle tends to photograph individuals with whom she has established personal relationships in a slow domestic setting. Her sense of urgency lies in capturing moments of peak intimacy, preserving a memory's informal beauty that otherwise may have been forgotten or overlooked.

Gla5 is a visual artist, poet, bookmaker, production designer, and educator. Play is at the center of their practice. Their process is an experimental one embracing impulse and adventure. Their compositions are informed by relationships among bodies of varying shapes, materials, and densities. Interests that come up in their work include a discernment between symbols and non-symbols, dream states, the portrayal of energy in action, and a fixation on forms such as cups, tables, and spoons.

“I generally think of my work as depicting a layer of life that exists underneath what we see in our everyday lives.”

Gladys Harlow is a sound-based performance artist, comedian, and activist who experiments with found objects, contact mics, textures, range, analog formats, present moments, and emotions. Through raw, avant-garbage performance art, they aim to breakdown societal barriers, abolish oppressive systems, and empower communities. Gladys was born in Queens, NY, raised in Miami, FL and has deep roots in Venezuela. Currently haunting in Philadelphia, PA, Gladys is a founding member of Sound Museum Collective. SMC holds space for reconstructing our relationships to sounds by creating a platform for women, nonbinary, and trans sound artists and engineers.

Street Rat is a visceral exploration of the mysteries of life. Attempting to bring heavy concepts to your reality, it is the eye on the ground that sees and translates all intersecting issues as they merge, explode, dissolve, and implode. Street Rat is Gladys Harlow's way of comprehending, coping, feeling, taking action, disrupting the status quo, and rebuilding our path.

All Power To The People originated as a recorded performance intended to demystify sound by revealing the tools, wires, and movements used to create it. All Power To The People evolved into an installation conceived specifically for this exhibition. The installation includes a theremin and oscillator built by Gladys, a tarot deck they made by hand, and books from the artist's personal collection, amongst other elements. Gladys has created a structure of comfort and exploration. They welcome all visitors of divine knowing to play with the instrument, flip freely through the books, and pull a tarot card to take home.

Phoebe Hart is an experimental animator and filmmaker. A majority of her work is centered around mental illness and the line between dreams and reality. Merry Go Round is a sculptural zoetrope that changes in shape and color as it spins. Its form is inspired by nature and its color by the circus. The video’s sound was produced by Hayden Waggener. It consists of reverbing chimes which are in rhythm with the stop animation’s movement; both oscillate seamlessly between serene and anxious states.

“I often don't plan the sculptures or objects I am fabricating, there is a vague image in my mind, and my hands take care of the rest. I find that sometimes overthinking is what can get me and other artists stuck. If I just abandon my judgments and ego, I can really let go and create work that feels like it came inherently from me.”

Powerviolets is the solo project of multi-instrumentalist Violet Hetson who is currently based in New York. After experiencing several false starts while bouncing coast to coast, recording and performing with several lineups, Hetson has finally released her debut album. ~No Boys~ namesake is a sarcastic sign she hung on her suburban CT teenage bedroom door. Violet Hetson grew up primarily listening to punk and hardcore. She parses elements of these genres with influences from bands such as X and Suburban Lawns. ~No Boys~ takes a softer, melodic approach to Hetson's punk roots. Powerviolets' music is linear, unconventional, dark, and airy with a sense of humor.

Mary Hunt is a fiber artist specializing in chain stitch embroidery. This traditional form of embroidery uses vintage machinery and thick thread to create fibrous art and embellishments. They use an approach called "thread painting," which requires each stitch to be hand guided by the turn of a knob underneath the table while the speed of movement is controlled by a foot pedal. Chainstitch works can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 200 hours, encouraging a slow and thoughtful process. Mary uses a Cornely A machine, made in Paris more than 100 years ago.

“I think we are sent messages and guidance constantly. Our intuition is simply our ability to clear the path for those messages. The largest obstacles on my artistic path are usually self-imposed negative thoughts. I simply do things to take care of my spiritual well-being, first and foremost, and the rest follows. If I can trust the universe, trust the process, then I am much more likely to listen to the messages sent my way.”

Jes the Jem is a multi-media artist working with acrylic, watercolor, mold clay, and whatever else she can get her hands on. She uses vivid color to bring joy into the lives of those who view her art. Jes the Jem has experienced a great deal of pain in her life. Through that unique displeasure, she has been gifted a nuanced perspective. She aims to energize the present while paying homage to the past events that shape us. In her art, her life, and her interpersonal relationships, Jes the Jem appreciates the gift of all of life's experiences.

“The pursuit of happiness and understanding is instinct.”

Pamela Kivi pieces together visual scraps she has saved over the years, choosing to fuse them at whatever present moment she sees fit. Her work reflects on creative mania, fleeting emotions, and memories. Pamela's collages are a compilation of unexpected elements that include: old notebooks, cut-outs, text messages or Facebook message conversations, nostalgic cellphone photos, and visual materials she has chosen to hold onto. She prints out, cuts up, scans, edits, repeats. Pamela's artistic practice is deeply personal. It is a submittal to the process of dusting things off until a reflection can be seen, all enacted without an attachment to the end result.

“I rely on intuition and whatever state of mind I am in to whisk me away. In life, I often confuse intuition with anxiety- when it comes to creative work, I can decipher the two.”

Through sobriety, Kendall Kolenik's focus has shifted toward self-discovery and shedding old adaptive patterns, a process that led her to a passion for helping others heal themselves too. In autumn, she will begin her Masters in Social Work at Columbia University.

“I love how when I'm painting my self-doubt becomes so apparent. Painting shows me exactly where my doubt lies, which guides me towards overriding it. When I paint something and lean into doubt, I don't like what comes out. When I take note of the resistance and go with my gut more freely, I love it. This reminds me of my yoga practice. What you practice on the mat is a metaphor for how you show up in life. By breathing through the uncomfortable poses on the mat, you learn to breathe through challenging life moments.

I think we all grow up learning to numb and edit ourselves. We are taught not to trust our feelings; we are told to look outside ourselves for answers when we already have a perfectly good compass within. Painting is an archway back to that for me - rediscovering self-reliance and faith in my first instinct. When I'm creating these rainbow squares, sometimes I move so fast it's like something else is carrying me. I sort of leave myself and enter a trance. Like how you don't have to tell the heart to beat or the lungs to breathe - thinking goes away and I can get so close to my knowing that I become it. I love how art allows me to access my love for ambiguity, interpretation, and an interpretation that feels closer to Truth. I find no greater purpose than guiding people back to safety and reconnecting them with themselves. The most important thing to ever happen in my life was when I stopped trying to deny my reality - listening to your intuition can be like a freefall - no one but you can ever know or tell you - it is a deep trust without any outside proof.”

Lucille Loffredo is a music school dropout, Jewish trans lesbian, and veterinary assistant doing her best to make sure each day is better than the last. Lucille tries to find the music rather than make it. She lets it tell her what it wants to do and what it wants to be. The Wandering EP was in part written as a way to come out to herself. She asks all listeners to please be gentle.

“Change will come, and it will be good. You are who you think you are, no matter how far it seems.”

Whitney Lorenze generally works without reference, making thick, graphic pictures with precise forms conceived almost entirely from her imagination. Images like a slowly rolling car crackling out of a driveway, afternoon sun rays shining through a cloud of humidity, or headlights throwing a lined shadow across a black bedroom inspire her.

“As it concerns my own practice and the creation of artworks generally, I would define intuition as the ability to succumb to some primal creative impulse. Of course, this implies also the ability to resist the temptations of producing a calculated or contrived output.”

Ellie Mesa began teaching herself to paint at the age of 15, exploring landscapes and portraiture. Her work has evolved into a style of painting influenced by surrealism where teddy bears will morph into demons and vice versa. Her work speaks to cuteness, the grotesque, and mystical beings. The painting "Kali" is an homage to the Hindu goddess of creation,  destruction, life and death. This was Ellie's first painting after becoming sober and is an expression of the aforementioned forces in her own life. Through meditations on Kali, Elli has been able to find beauty in the cycle of love and loss.

“To me, intuition means doing the thing that feels right whether or not it's what you want it to be. When I'm painting or making a sculpture, I give myself the freedom to follow what feels right, even if that means starting over or changing it completely. I allow the piece to present itself to me instead of forcing something that doesn't want to be.”

Mari Ogihara is a sculptor exploring duality, resilience, beauty, and serenity as experienced through the female gaze. Her work is informed by the duality of womanhood and the contradictions of femininity. In particular, the multitude of roles we inhabit as friend, lover, sister, and mother and their complex associations to the feminine perspective.

“Intuition is an innate, immediate reaction to an experience. While making art, I try to balance intuition, logic, and craftsmanship.”

All Of Me Is War by Ames Valaitis addresses the subconscious rifts society initiates between women, estranging them from each other and themselves.

“It is an unspoken, quick, and quiet battle within me as the feeling of intuition purely, and when I am making a drawing. I am immediately drawn to poses and subject matter that reflect the emotion inside myself, whether it is loud or under the surface. If a line or figure doesn't move me, after working on it for a few minutes, I get rid of it. If something looks right to me immediately, I keep it; nurture it. I try to let go of my vision, let my instinct take hold. I mirror this in my life as I get older, choosing who and what to put my energy into. The feeling is rarely wrong; I'd say we all know inherently when it is time to continue or tap out.”

Chardel Williams is a self-taught artist currently living in Bridgeport. Her biggest inspiration is her birthplace of Jamaica. Chardel views painting as a method for blocking out chaos. Her attraction to the medium springs from its coalescence of freedom, meditative qualities, and the connection it engenders. rears.

“Intuition for me is going where my art flows. I implement it in my practice by simply creating space and time to listen. There are times when what I'm painting is done in everyone else's eyes, but I just keep picking at it. Sometimes I would stop painting a piece and go months without touching it. Then, out of nowhere, be obsessed with finishing. I used to get frustrated with that process, but now I go with it. I stopped calling it a block and just flow with it. I listen because my work talks.”

[mybukz]

Poetry Review: May All Beings Rock by Lawrence Pettener

Title: May All Beings Rock Author : Lawrence Pettener Publisher : Lulu Genre: Poetry Format: Paperback, 76 pages Price: USD 9.19 Released:November 2017 Reviewer: Leon Wing

“Poetry never has reason to rhyme though not many things are true all the time.”

The poet of this resounding collection of poems is such a tease, with those first lines of “A Couplet or Two on Duality”. As a reader who has grown past reading rhyming poems, I find poetry only has reason to rhyme when it wants to make connections. Which is what that second line is all about.

Yet another tease comes in the way of the poetic lamentation to Ted Hughes, “The Suppression of Poetry”, in which Lawrence howls his sorrow over the death of the man who IS poetry personified.

The despair is such that he writes:

“Poetry is dead – long live poetry! As drama and fiction move in on its territory, poets lay down pens and start barking —far too few poets to pacify me. Poetry is dead – long live poetry!”

But fear not, reader of this review, as far as this reviewer is concerned, poetry is alive and kicking in the form of this exceptional collection of poems.

In “The Heart of Sadness and the Start of Hardness”, even though “we tear up and trample the invitation”, don’t trample Lawrence’s invitation to read this rollicking verse, which repeats lines to create parallelisms of sounds and rhythms, because in each stanza, “each moment a tremendous celebration”.

You might have heard or read about out of body experiences. Lawrence’s take on this is so visually, rhythmically and graphically accessible in “Losing a body”.

“Once, in Katmandu, your mouth flew open and a spirit entered. You woke with a gash above your eye, recalling nothing.”

The narrator only got back into corporeality, when “.. he flattened you with one good punch to give you back your body, and that kind cut.”

Lawrence has not only this knack of placing lines into formations of sounds, he sometimes manipulates the grammar of a line, by eliding an anticipated word, as in “Brightloaded”:

“You walk out alone, listening the park; lines of trees run right through you.”

The omission of the expected preposition after ‘listening’ is justified when you read the next stanza and experience the sensation of trees rushing right at you with the ‘r’ alliteration in three words, and into you, with the near rhymes of the ending two words.

In another instance of skewed grammar, he is not forging a deliberate error. In “So Much for Common Sense”, he overhears a young man on a phone say “There’s so much people.” But he is aware that “that young man on his mobile/had been completely correct”.

In “This Tap Behaviour”, even though the ‘psychotic neighbour’ is always banging at his taps, when that one time he isn’t, it is practically music to Lawrence’s poetic ear:

“…there was no noise coming through, just this plangent song of water, a plumbed release of pressure. A long, pining whine keened high through our shared pipes like sacred music.”

From his travels around the world, Lawrence writes not only about 'pipe’ music, but also exotic Mongolian punk bands, like “Yat Kha”, who covers rock classics using goat-hair violins. And, he hobnobs with some of the best poets, like John Burnside, in “Drinking John Burnside’s Beer”. And, he praises the ubiquitous British fast food, the chips, in “In Praise of Chips”.

I love the joke in “Subterfuge”, where dinner guests thought they’d witnessed evidence of a murder when a knuckle pokes out from a dish Lawrence copied from a TV chef. He writes again about food, in “News from Europe”, about untypical and unusual concoctions of European chocolates. Still more on chocolates in “Seventy Percent”, about “chocolate anthology” from a supermarket that are “bittersweet as good poetry. The taste/for bitterness comes later on in life.”

There are a couple of poems about music. His take on it can be irreverent but funny. In “We All Need Support”, Lawrence sort of pokes fun at the 'gravel drawl’ of a famous singer 'Bob’. Years later after coming out from his concert, he and his friends “.. found a busker sitting on the ground as in a festival field, playing clear, authentic versions of Bob’s songs. Not only that, he knew how to talk. We adored him. He spoiled it for one of my friends though, a lifelong Dylan fan, by looking up and smiling.”

The last lines make me laugh out loud.

In “Classic in Three Movements”, the poem is not so much about the music but about the movements, but not as what a musician would assume. The movements are physical ones seen or spied upon, not heard, at windows. In another piece, he writes about Deep Purple, but not as how a fan would have liked. He also writes about Bjork, in “Bjorkquake”, imagining how the Icelandic musician would have reacted if she “…had found the perfect bass-note, the earth-deep sound that Odin wrote”

Other subjects Lawrence touches on include crafty magpies with their eyes on his bike, meditation and cats, more poems about cats, their squealing love-making, cat flaps, a few poems about cycling, about locking heads with a driver, gate crashing wedding parties, about first love and the first kiss, about a specific part of a woman’s body, sensitive noses, about past loves, and about working in a mental ward,

In poems about his travels he shows us the vista of the world from his poetic point of view: a funny poem about wandering into a club thinking it was a cafe, an interaction in a launderette with a cleaner from Sarajevo; observing the Basilica of St Maria ad Martyres; eating in Rome, where an Italian word he overheard makes him think of Freud; about flamenco; tasting yoghurt at the Damascus Gate; and stomach pains while traveling in India.

His foray into haiku elicits some astounding revelations about how we communicate today, and about reincarnation.

In his pieces about meditation and other related matters, he ponders about “who you weren’t in all your past lives”. In one amusing piece, thieves broke into a Zen centre and got away with nothing. In “Sutra Neti”, he shows us a sort of yoga one would not imagine could be done: “through the closed left nostril,/pushing softly to penetrate/the swollen lip at the nasal root”.

He has a wry sense of humour. In “Wild Life, April, England” he tells a beggar, “Change? Yes please, love,/I’ll change into a butterfly.” Meeting friends in “Hope & Anchor”, he says, “I hate endings,/putting off the moment when one will kill/the others off with glib goodbyes”.

When he gets serious, he writes with a poignancy which makes you gulp at the sensitivity of the lines. Like in “Doing Tai Chi with My Father”: “My father is horizontal, his cheeks/massive and sagging. The coffin lid stands up/against the wall. It is a small jolt/to see my own name, something we shared”. Especially when that first stanza runs on down to the the next, with its line, “on the coffin lid..” In “Kreuzberger”, we see Lawrence and his brother Ged outside a fast food place, looking at a drunken old man. You’d think the pathos is all about people like the drunk. No, it is not; not until you read up to the very last two lines in the poem. The last line has only two words, but the pathos hits you full on as the wide-sounding vowels in the first syllables of the two words thin to shorter 'e’ sounds, and the “f” sound thickens with the 'v’.

His departing poem is the longest piece. In “Nine Cemetery Contemplations”, he mulls over the death of a kitten, the death of birds in the hands, or rather, paws, of a cat, teenage fascination with a French teacher, having an accident, someone dying in the tsunami, more reflections about his brother’s passing, visiting his father for the last time, buying a Buddhist book for his dying father, and finally the last and the ninth piece, which is so worth quoting in full, here:

“When you were birthed you cried, and your whole world was overjoyed. When you die, we mourn while you may find the great liberation – or just be glad to be reborn.”

*

Lawrence Pettener works full-time as copy-editor, proofreader and writer, with recent and forthcoming book reviews and artist interviews in The Star (Malaysia) and Juliet.com. As Kwailo Lumpur, he writes comic material about Malaysian life, food especially. Three original poetry books are due out in 2019.

Link to the book’s website: www.lawrencepettener.com/mayallbeingsrock Link to stores: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/lawrencepettener https://www.booktopia.com.au/search.ep?keywords=may+all+beings+rock&productType=917504

[fyp-psychology]

Rare Collection of 100 Introvert Quotes That Will Make You Feel Understood

Dear introverts, it’s difficult to understand you. Many people don’t comprehend that solitude and feeling alone are different things. As an introvert, you know that your solitude is a sacred space where you can recharge. We encourage you to have a look at these amazingly thoughtful and profound quotes, which will resonate with all introverts.

1. “People empty me. I have to get away to refill.” ~ C. Bukowski

2.“I think a lot, but I don’t say much.”~ Anne Frank

3.“I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel.” ~ Audrey Hepburn

4.“You see things. You keep quiet about them and you understand. “ ~ The Perks of Being a Wallflower

5.“I’m very picky with whom I give my energy to. I prefer to reserve my time, intensity and spirit exclusively to those who reflect sincerity.” ~ Dau Voire

6.“I am rarely bored alone; I am often bored in groups and crowds.” ~ Laurie Helgoe

7.“There is a tremendous difference between alone and lonely. You could be lonely in a group of people. I like being alone. I like eating by myself. I go home at night and just watch a movie or hang out with my dog. I have to exert myself and really say, oh God, I’ve got to see my friends because I’m too content with myself.” ~ Drew Barrymore

8.“Silence is only frightening to people who are compulsively verbalizing.” ~ William S. Boroughs

9.“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” Stephen Hawking

10.“In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.” ~ Rollo May

11.“What if you love knowledge for its own sake, not necessarily as a blueprint for action? What if you wish there were more, not fewer reflective types in the world.” ~Susan Cain

12.“Please kindly go away, I’m introverting.” ~ Beth Buelow, The Introvert Entrepreneur

13.“A good rule of thumb is that any environment that consistently leaves you feeling bad about who you are is the wrong environment.” ~ Laurie Helgoe

14.“Everyone shines, given the right lighting.” ~Susan Cain

15.“Don’t underestimate me because I’m quiet. I know more than I say, think more than I speak and observe more than you know.” ~ Michaela Chung

16.“Introverts crave meaning so party chit-chat feels like sandpaper to our psyche.” ~ Diane Cameron

17.“I am a minimalist. I like saying the most with the least.” ~Bob Newhart

18.“Let’s clear one thing up: Introverts do not hate small talk because we dislike people. We hate small talk because we hate the barrier it creates between people.” ~ Laurie Helgoe

19.“The highest form of love is to be the protector of another person’s solitude.” Rainer Maria Rilke

20.“Introvert conversations are like jazz. Each player gets to solo for a nice stretch before the other player comes in and does his solo.” ~ Laurie Helgoe

21.“Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone—that is the secret of invention: be alone, that is when ideas are born.”~ Nikola Tesla

22.“In terms of, like, instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin.” ~John Mulaney

23.“Stay true to your own nature. If you like to do things in a slow and steady way, don’t let others make you feel as if you have to race. If you enjoy the depth, don’t force yourself to seek breadth.” ~ Susan Cain

24.”Introverts treasure the close relationships they have stretched so much to make.”- Adam S. McHugh

25.“I want to be alone… with someone else who wants to be alone.” – Dimitri Zaik

26.“Our culture made a virtue of living only as extroverts. We discouraged the inner journey, the quest for a center. So we lost our center and have to find it again.” ~Anais Nin

27.“Silence is beautiful, not awkward. The human tendency to be afraid of something beautiful is awkward.” ~Elliot Kay

28.“After an hour or two of being socially on, we introverts need to turn off and recharge … This isn’t antisocial. It isn’t a sign of depression.” Jonathan Rauch

29.“Your solitude will be a support and a home for you, even in the midst of very unfamiliar circumstances, and from it you will find all your paths.” ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

30.“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” ~Susan Cain

31.“I talked to a calzone for fifteen minutes last night before I realized it was just an introverted pizza. I wish all my acquaintances were so tasty.
” ~ Jarod Kintz

32.“The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it’s a Broadway spotlight, for others, a lamplit desk.” ~ Susan Cain

33.“As a child, I suppose I was not quite normal. My happiest times were when I was left alone in the house on a Saturday.” ~ Charles Bukowski

34.“When you’re an introvert like me and you’ve been lonely for a while, and then you find someone who understands you, you become really attached to them. It’s a real release.” Lana Del Rey

35.“Blessed are those who do not fear solitude, who are not afraid of their own company, who are not always desperately looking for something to do, something to amuse themselves with, something to judge.” ~ Paulo Coelho

36.“I was just confused about why I was feeling overwhelmed all the time and trying to adjust to having people work for me. Surprisingly, I think if you’re known on the Internet, you’re probably an introvert.” ~ Felicia Day

37.“’Come out of your shell’ – that noxious expression which fails to appreciate that some animals naturally carry shelter everywhere they go and some humans are just the same.” ~ Susan Cain

38.“I don’t have time for superficial friends, I suppose if you’re really lonely you can call a superficial friend, but otherwise, what’s the point? ~ Courtney Cox

39.“I owe everything that I have done to the fact that I am very much at ease being alone.” ~ Marilynne Robinson

40.“Introverts listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror for small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.” ~ Susan Cain

41.“My imagination functions much better when I don’t have to speak to people.” ~ Patricia Highsmith

42.”For introverts, to be alone with our thoughts is as restorative as sleeping, as nourishing as eating.” ~ Jonathan Rauch

43.“Beware of those who seek constant crowds; they are nothing alone.” ~Charles Bukowski

44.“I’m self-sufficient. I spend a lot of time on my own and I shut off quite easily. When I communicate, I communicate 900 per cent; then I shut off, which scares people sometimes.” ~ Bjork

45.“Loneliness is failed solitude.” Sherry Turkle

46.A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live. ~ Bertrand Russell

47.“Whatever kind of introvert you are, some people will find you ‘too much’ in some ways and ‘not enough’ in others.” ~ Laurie Helgoe

48.“A wise man once said nothing.” ~ Proverb

49.“In an extroverted society, the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is that an introvert is often unconsciously deemed guilty until proven innocent.” ~ Criss Jami

50.“When I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing.” ~ Mary Oliver

51.“Most people in politics draw energy from backslapping and shaking hands and all that. I draw energy from discussing ideas.” ~ Al Gore

52.“Solitude matters and for some people, it’s the air they breathe.” ~ Susan Cain

53.“I don’t believe anything really revolutionary has ever been invented by committee… I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone… Not on a committee. Not on a team.” ~ Steve Wozniak

54.“Don’t think of introversion as something that needs to be cured…Spend your free time the way you like, not the way you think you’re supposed to.”~ Susan Cain

55.“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet. ~ Franz Kafka

56.“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.” ~ Plato

57.“I was never less alone than when by myself.” ~ Edward Gibbon

58.Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent. ~ Napoleon Hill

59.“Solitude has its own very strange beauty to it.” ~ Liv Tyler

60.“Better to keep quiet and let people think you’re an idiot than speak up and confirm it.” ~ Rodney Dangerfield

61.“I restore myself when I’m alone.” Marilyn Monroe

62.“Introverts dislike small talk, but we are fluent in the language of ideas and dreams.” ~ Michaela Chung

63.“You may think I’m small, but I have a universe inside my mind.” ~Yoko Ono

64.“Love is essential, gregariousness is optional.” ~ Susan Cain

65.“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes” C.G. Jung

66.“As an introvert, you can be your own best friend or your worst enemy. The good news is we generally like our own company, a quality that extroverts often envy. We find comfort in solitude and know how to soothe ourselves.” ~ Laurie Helgoe

67.“People say things to me like, ‘It’s really cool that you don’t go out and get drunk all the time and go to clubs.’ I appreciate that, but I’m kind of an introverted kind of person just by nature.” ~ Emma Watson

68.“I think I’m a weird combination of deeply introverted and very daring. I can feel both those things working.” ~ Helen Hunt

69.“E-mail is far more convenient than the telephone. As far as I’m concerned, I would throw my phone away if I could get away with it.” ~ Tom Hanks

70.“My alone feels so good, I’ll only have you if you’re sweeter than my solitude.” Warsan Shire

71.“I really like to stay in my nest and not move. I travel in my mind, and that’s a rigorous state of journeying for me. My body isn’t that interested in moving from place to place.” ~ Bell Hooks

72.“I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

73.“Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family.” ~ Susan Cain

74.“I don’t want to be alone. I want to be left alone.” ~ Audrey Hepburn

75.“I don’t hate people, I just feel better when they aren’t around.” ~Charles Bukowski

76.“Introverts are capable of acting like extroverts for the sake of work they consider important, people they love, or anything they value highly.” ~ Susan Cain

77.“Sometimes quiet people really do have a lot to say … they’re just being careful about who they open up to.” Susan Gale

78.“You only know part of me. I am a universe full of secrets.” ~ Lupytha Hermin

79.“A bore is someone who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.” ~ Oscar Wilde

80.“I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.” ~ Margaret Donnano

81.“Alone had always felt like an actual place to me, as if it weren’t a state of being, but rather a room where I could retreat to be who I really was.” ~ Cheryl Strayed

82.“An introvert may feel asocial when pressured to go to a party that doesn’t interest her. But for her, the event does not promise meaningful interaction. In fact, she knows that the party will leave her feeling more alone and alienated.” ~ Laurie Helgoe

83.“Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.” ~Audrey Hepburn

84.“The more powerful and original a mind, the more it will incline towards the religion of solitude.” ~ Aldous Huxley

85.“People are always so boring when they band together. You have to be alone to develop all the idiosyncrasies that make a person interesting.” ~ Andy Warhol

86.“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me. They’re shy and they live in their heads. The very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone…” ~ Steve Wozniak

87.“Kindly remove yourself from my personal space. Thanks.” ~ Gemma Correll

88.“Deep inside, she knew who she was, and that person was smart and kind and often even funny, but somehow her personality always got lost somewhere between her heart and her mouth, and she found herself saying the wrong thing or, more often, nothing at all.” ~ Julia Quinn

89.“Sometimes I just shut down and don’t talk to anyone for days. It’s nothing personal.” ~ Sonya Teclai

90.“I am lonely, yet not everybody will do. I don’t know why, some people fill the gaps but other people emphasize my loneliness.” ~ Anais Nin

91.“Never fail to know that if you are doing all the talking you are boring somebody.” ~Helen Gurley Brown

92.“Lighthouses don’t go running all over an island looking for boats to save; they just stand there shining.” ~ Anne Lamott

93.“Study me as much as you like, you will never know me. For I differ a hundred ways from what you see me to be.” ~ Rumi

94.“How much better is silence; the coffee cup, the table. How much better to sit by myself like the solitary sea-bird that opens its wings on the stake. Let me sit here forever with bare things, this coffee cup, this knife, this fork, things in themselves, myself being myself.” ~ Virginia Wolf, The Waves

95.“What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices it like a secret vice!” Anne Morrow Lindbergh

96.“People inspire you, or they drain you — pick them wisely.” ~ Hans F. Hansen

97.“I’m indecisive because I see eight sides to everything.” ~ April Kepne

98.“In a gentle way, you can shake the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi

99.“So, if you are too tired to speak, sit next to me. Because I, too, am fluent in silence.”- R. Arnold

100.“Every time we stomp down our introverted nature, we crush part of our soul in the process.” ~ Michaela Chung

[sablenoir]

Rules: Answer 30 questions, tag 20 blogs

tagged by @amadryades <3

Nickname: Does pizza lovin gangsta or pizzepreneur count? I will go with sable noir Gender: Female Sign: Libra Height: 5′6 Time: 12:04 am Birthday: 16/10 Fav bands: Smiths, Velvet Underground ,White Stripes,Oasis,Radiohead,Queen,Nirvana ,Muse ,Pixies,Beirut,Arcade Fire,Muse and many many other bands Fav solo artists:  David Bowie,Lorde,Lady Gaga,Beck,Simon &Garfunkel,Bjork,Sia,Adele etc etc Song stuck in my head: MorMor -“Heaven’s Only Wishful”  Last movie I saw: Taste of Tea/ Cha no aji (2004) Last show I watched: Friends (did I mention that I hate Ross?), και Σαββατογεννημένες When did I create my blog: 2017 What do I post: stuff I like (pictures ,quotes , aesthetic) Last thing I Googled: the new Lara Croft movie trailer (she is goals, seriously! ) Do I have any oter blogs: esthir.tumblr.com (mainly NSFW  stuff)

Do I get asks: Y’all dont be shy , I dont bite. Ask anything ,I guess? Why did I chose my URL:  Black sand ,rare ,exotic.I guess if Slytherin had an island,  it probably would’ve been full of black sand beaches and dragons,which is kinda fun.But originally the name came from a french movie called “Un Homme Idéal “ Following: 456 Followed : some lovely ppl who have amazing blogs

Average hours of sleep: 6-8

Lucky number: 7 Instruments: I play the guitar , but I wish I knew how to play the piano or cello What I am wearing: some weird pyjamas (grey pants ,dark blue blouse with some eastern pattern details and athletic socks)  

Dream job: Entepreuner ,CEO, own my shop/or restaurant , sth that has to do with business/management

Dream trip:Visit Italy and Egypt again, Japan’s temples, Middle East in general,Argentina,Uruguay,Cuba,Ireland,Scotland,London,Portugal and Spain Fav food: Italian and greek cuisine,Indian,Arabic /Eastern food.I’ve always been a sucker for pizza (still dreamin abt this NY slice)

Nationality: Greek Fav song: - Last book I read: Finishing Anais Nin early diary (1923-1927) Top 3 fictional universes I wanna join: Harry Potter world,Middle Earth minus the bad guys ,and Tomb Raider ‘s world full of unexplored tombs and temples

taggin :everyone and : @aleaergane @j-desesseintes @le-dilemme 

[lagarconne-journal]

Day 5 — Paris Fashion Week

Today, our Fashion Director Sarah Levett speaks with emerging designer Ovelia Transtoto, whose namesake label was just launched in 2016. The Indonesian-born designer mixes oversized silhouettes and technical fabrics with feminine details for her own unique take on menswear-inspired styles.

Describe your creative process.

One of the things I do is, I go to museums. I’m always drawn to 16th century paintings -- Victorian time, Georgian time. I collect all these images and then try to create something relevant for now. I start sketching, draping, and work from there to get the fabrics right.

But I am influenced by so many things -- it’s never one thing. I mix things from all over the spectrum of references. We’re in the Internet age where all the information is available to you, and you’re able to just pick and choose to make your story.

What inspired the Spring/Summer 2018 collection?

I’m working on a black and white film which is not finished yet, but we’re done with the shooting. It’s all stills from the film. It’s about a modern relationship. I don’t get engaged with fashion films, but I really enjoy films. Seeing and reacting to human experiences is interesting to me. I just want to give a story for people to get a feeling. I’m trying to make something people can relate to. So it’s not even centralized on the clothing, the clothing is just a part of the film. Clothing is a part of our lives, but it’s not centralized to our life. It just helps to be who you want to be, and helps to create an identity.

How long has the brand been around?

I started back in January 2016 -- it’s still very young. This is my fourth season. I’m from Indonesia and I moved to London for university (I went to Central Saint Martins). I knew I was going to do this, but I didn’t think I was going to do it in London, I thought I would just do it in Indonesia. But then I got a visa, so I thought I should stay in London.

Have you always been interested in fashion?

I’ve always been interested in making things since I was very young. Since I was 9, I was obsessed with shoes. I used to draw shoes all the time when I was young, I don’t know why. I never really cared about sizing either. I wore a lot of boys clothes. Then when I finished school (before university), I was trained to be a potter. I didn’t know fashion could be a career or anything like that. I think I was too scared to dive in. But then I moved to England when I got into Central Saint Martins. I went because I thought I was going to be a textile designer. I think from my pottery days, I like anything you can touch. During my time at CSM, I took a fashion course -- fashion print -- and that lead me into fashion design. I still want to continue to do my textile design, it is really important to me to continue to incorporate that into my designs.

What living person do you most admire?

My parents are my heros. They give me so much freedom and so much strength. But apart from them, ever since I was 13, Bjork has been my idol. She’s so cool. I remember this quote from her, something like “you don’t ever have to try to be funny, because if you’re funny, you’re funny.” It's just like, be who you are, and if you are that person you don’t have to work at it. She is her own person, she isn’t afraid to be different. It’s important to be original, and then that’s genuine.

What are you looking forward to in the future?

I would love to be part-time back home in Indonesia, or able to be in between London and Indonesia, that way I can see my parents more. To be able to build a business that would allow me to do that would be wonderful, and to create new products along the way and collaborate with people too. When I retire, I want to be a potter. Although, I will never retire. I love working, I don’t see myself not working. I love working so much. I can’t imagine not doing anything.

[confrontingbabble-on]

Every religious belief system...is a complete blasphemy...in the eyes of every other religious belief system...and all are a complete blasphemy in the eyes of rational unbelief...

For example, as outlined by Atheist Ireland ...

“Here are the 25 blasphemous quotes that we first published on 1 January 2010, along with the quotation that has caused the Irish police to investigate Stephen Fry.

1. Jesus Christ, when asked if he was the son of God, in Matthew 26:64: “Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” According to the Christian Bible, the Jewish chief priests and elders and council deemed this statement by Jesus to be blasphemous, and they sentenced Jesus to death for saying it.

2. Jesus Christ, talking to Jews about their God, in John 8:44: “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him.” This is one of several chapters in the Christian Bible that can give a scriptural foundation to Christian anti-Semitism. The first part of John 8, the story of “whoever is without sin cast the first stone”, was not in the original version, but was added centuries later. The original John 8 is a debate between Jesus and some Jews. In brief, Jesus calls the Jews who disbelieve him sons of the Devil, the Jews try to stone him, and Jesus runs away and hides.

3. Muhammad, quoted in Hadith of Bukhari, Vol 1 Book 8 Hadith 427: “May Allah curse the Jews and Christians for they built the places of worship at the graves of their prophets.” This quote is attributed to Muhammad on his death-bed as a warning to Muslims not to copy this practice of the Jews and Christians. It is one of several passages in the Koran and in Hadith that can give a scriptural foundation to Islamic anti-Semitism, including the assertion in Sura 5:60 that Allah cursed Jews and turned some of them into apes and swine.

4. Mark Twain, describing the Christian Bible in Letters from the Earth, 1909: “Also it has another name – The Word of God. For the Christian thinks every word of it was dictated by God. It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies… But you notice that when the Lord God of Heaven and Earth, adored Father of Man, goes to war, there is no limit. He is totally without mercy — he, who is called the Fountain of Mercy. He slays, slays, slays! All the men, all the beasts, all the boys, all the babies; also all the women and all the girls, except those that have not been deflowered. He makes no distinction between innocent and guilty… What the insane Father required was blood and misery; he was indifferent as to who furnished it.” Twain’s book was published posthumously in 1939. His daughter, Clara Clemens, at first objected to it being published, but later changed her mind in 1960 when she believed that public opinion had grown more tolerant of the expression of such ideas. That was half a century before Fianna Fail and the Green Party imposed a new blasphemy law on the people of Ireland.

5. Tom Lehrer, The Vatican Rag, 1963: “Get in line in that processional, step into that small confessional. There, the guy who’s got religion’ll tell you if your sin’s original. If it is, try playing it safer, drink the wine and chew the wafer. Two, four, six, eight, time to transubstantiate!”

6. Randy Newman, God’s Song, 1972: “And the Lord said: I burn down your cities – how blind you must be. I take from you your children, and you say how blessed are we. You all must be crazy to put your faith in me. That’s why I love mankind.”

7. James Kirkup, The Love That Dares to Speak its Name, 1976: “While they prepared the tomb I kept guard over him. His mother and the Magdalen had gone to fetch clean linen to shroud his nakedness. I was alone with him… I laid my lips around the tip of that great cock, the instrument of our salvation, our eternal joy. The shaft, still throbbed, anointed with death’s final ejaculation.” This extract is from a poem that led to the last successful blasphemy prosecution in Britain, when Denis Lemon was given a suspended prison sentence after he published it in the now-defunct magazine Gay News. In 2002, a public reading of the poem, on the steps of St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in Trafalgar Square, failed to lead to any prosecution. In 2008, the British Parliament abolished the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel.

8. Matthias, son of Deuteronomy of Gath, in Monty Python’s Life of Brian, 1979: “Look, I had a lovely supper, and all I said to my wife was that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehovah.”

9. Rev Ian Paisley MEP to the Pope in the European Parliament, 1988: “I denounce you as the Antichrist.” Paisley’s website describes the Antichrist as being “a liar, the true son of the father of lies, the original liar from the beginning… he will imitate Christ, a diabolical imitation, Satan transformed into an angel of light, which will deceive the world.”

10. Conor Cruise O’Brien, 1989: “In the last century the Arab thinker Jamal al-Afghani wrote: ‘Every Muslim is sick and his only remedy is in the Koran.’ Unfortunately the sickness gets worse the more the remedy is taken.”

11. Frank Zappa, 1989: “If you want to get together in any exclusive situation and have people love you, fine – but to hang all this desperate sociology on the idea of The Cloud-Guy who has The Big Book, who knows if you’ve been bad or good – and cares about any of it – to hang it all on that, folks, is the chimpanzee part of the brain working.”

12. Salman Rushdie, 1990: “The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas – uncertainty, progress, change – into crimes.” In 1989, Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwa ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of blasphemous passages in Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses.

13. Bjork, 1995: “I do not believe in religion, but if I had to choose one it would be Buddhism. It seems more livable, closer to men… I’ve been reading about reincarnation, and the Buddhists say we come back as animals and they refer to them as lesser beings. Well, animals aren’t lesser beings, they’re just like us. So I say fuck the Buddhists.”

14. Amanda Donohoe on her role in the Ken Russell movie Lair of the White Worm, 1995: “Spitting on Christ was a great deal of fun. I can’t embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages, and that persecution still goes on today all over the world.”

15. George Carlin, 1999: “Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there’s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ’til the end of time! But He loves you. He loves you, and He needs money! He always needs money! He’s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can’t handle money! Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more. Now, talk about a good bullshit story. Holy Shit!”

16. Paul Woodfull as Ding Dong Denny O’Reilly, The Ballad of Jaysus Christ, 2000: “He said me ma’s a virgin and sure no one disagreed, Cause they knew a lad who walks on water’s handy with his feet… Jaysus oh Jaysus, as cool as bleedin’ ice, With all the scrubbers in Israel he could not be enticed, Jaysus oh Jaysus, it’s funny you never rode, Cause it’s you I do be shoutin’ for each time I shoot me load.”

17. Jesus Christ, in Jerry Springer The Opera, 2003: “Actually, I’m a bit gay.” In 2005, the Christian Institute tried to bring a prosecution against the BBC for screening Jerry Springer the Opera, but the UK courts refused to issue a summons.

18. Tim Minchin, Ten-foot Cock and a Few Hundred Virgins, 2005: “So you’re gonna live in paradise, With a ten-foot cock and a few hundred virgins, So you’re gonna sacrifice your life, For a shot at the greener grass, And when the Lord comes down with his shiny rod of judgment, He’s gonna kick my heathen ass.”

19. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, 2006: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” In 2007 Turkish publisher Erol Karaaslan was charged with the crime of insulting believers for publishing a Turkish translation of The God Delusion. He was acquitted in 2008, but another charge was brought in 2009. Karaaslan told the court that “it is a right to criticise religions and beliefs as part of the freedom of thought and expression.”

20. Pope Benedict XVI quoting a 14th century Byzantine emperor, 2006: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.” This statement has already led to both outrage and condemnation of the outrage. The Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the world’s largest Muslim body, said it was a “character assassination of the prophet Muhammad”. The Malaysian Prime Minister said that “the Pope must not take lightly the spread of outrage that has been created.” Pakistan’s foreign Ministry spokesperson said that “anyone who describes Islam as a religion as intolerant encourages violence”. The European Commission said that “reactions which are disproportionate and which are tantamount to rejecting freedom of speech are unacceptable.”

21. Christopher Hitchens in God is not Great, 2007: “There is some question as to whether Islam is a separate religion at all… Islam when examined is not much more than a rather obvious and ill-arranged set of plagiarisms, helping itself from earlier books and traditions as occasion appeared to require… It makes immense claims for itself, invokes prostrate submission or ‘surrender’ as a maxim to its adherents, and demands deference and respect from nonbelievers into the bargain. There is nothing—absolutely nothing—in its teachings that can even begin to justify such arrogance and presumption.”

22. Ian O’Doherty, 2009: “(If defamation of religion was illegal) it would be a crime for me to say that the notion of transubstantiation is so ridiculous that even a small child should be able to see the insanity and utter physical impossibility of a piece of bread and some wine somehow taking on corporeal form. It would be a crime for me to say that Islam is a backward desert superstition that has no place in modern, enlightened Europe and it would be a crime to point out that Jewish settlers in Israel who believe they have a God given right to take the land are, frankly, mad. All the above assertions will, no doubt, offend someone or other.”

23. Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, 2009: “Whether a person is atheist or any other, there is in fact in my view something not totally human if they leave out the transcendent… we call it God… I think that if you leave that out you are not fully human.” Because atheism is not a religion, the Irish blasphemy law does not protect atheists from abusive and insulting statements about their fundamental beliefs. While atheists are not seeking such protection, we include the statement here to point out that it is discriminatory that this law does not hold all citizens equal.

24. Dermot Ahern, Irish Minister for Justice, introducing his blasphemy law at an Oireachtas Justice Committee meeting, 2009, and referring to comments made about him personally: “They are blasphemous.” Deputy Pat Rabbitte replied: “Given the Minister’s self-image, it could very well be that we are blaspheming,” and Minister Ahern replied: “Deputy Rabbitte says that I am close to the baby Jesus, I am so pure.” So here we have an Irish Justice Minister joking about himself being blasphemed, at a parliamentary Justice Committee discussing his own blasphemy law, that could make his own jokes illegal.

25. As a bonus, Micheal Martin, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, opposing attempts by Islamic States to make defamation of religion a crime at UN level, 2009: “We believe that the concept of defamation of religion is not consistent with the promotion and protection of human rights. It can be used to justify arbitrary limitations on, or the denial of, freedom of expression. Indeed, Ireland considers that freedom of expression is a key and inherent element in the manifestation of freedom of thought and conscience and as such is complementary to freedom of religion or belief.” Just months after Minister Martin made this comment, his colleague Dermot Ahern introduced Ireland’s new blasphemy law.

26. Finally, here is the quote that has caused the Irish police to investigate Stephen Fry for blasphemy. Asked by Gay Byrne on RTE what he would say if he was confronted by God, Fry replied: “How dare you create a world in which there is such misery that is not our fault. It’s not right. It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?” Questioned on how he would react if he was locked outside the pearly gates, he responded: “I would say, ‘Bone cancer in children? What’s that about?’ Because the God who created this universe, if it was created by God, is quite clearly a maniac, utter maniac. Totally selfish. We have to spend our life on our knees thanking him? What kind of God would do that?””

https://atheist.ie/2017/05/25-blasphemous-quotes-in-solidarity-with-stephen-fry/

[murmurous-haunt]

Tag - you’re it

I was tagged by the wonderful @thebookimaginarium​ and I thank you very much. I feel as though I’ve been in the desert for a month - my computer had to be repaired, so... yeah. Thanks for the tag - I’m pretty starved for any kind of communication by now...

What would you name your future kids? I’m not really sure and it’s quite a difficult choise, because sometimes Slavic names are impossible to pronounce. I want something that would make it easy for my child/ren to adapt and travel and meet all kinds of people without having to twist their tongues in order to introduce themselves. At the same time I don’t want them to have some ridiculous name that would make them funny in front of their peers while they still live in Bulgaria... Decisions, decisions... I love the name Kay, by the way, because of the Snow queen, but somehow Kay Ivanov sounds really stupid to me... Maybe, Leda for a girl (Leda and the Swan)

Do you miss anyone? Not really, I guess. I try to keep people that matter to me in my life... I miss sometimes the oppurtunity to communicate with people who share my fandom interests...

What are you looking forward to? Being a mother - although the idea that I might fuck up my children really scares me.

Is it hard of you to get over someone? Sometimes - I have very fond memories of people I haven’t talked to in years and I don’t miss them... Although, when it involves romantic interests, I’m very inadequate, it’s hard to make a transition and it’s very painful for a while..

What was your life like last year? It was quite normal. For the first time ever, I’m in a stable relationship and it’s taking time to get used to it.. So yeah, it was really nice..

What is your life like this year? I don’t know. I’m still trying to find my place under the sun, especially when it comes to proffessional achievements (which are paltry, by the way).. Apparently, no one in Bulgaria needs psychologists and therapists and it’s very hard to find a relevant job. The pay is abysmal - I get like 250 dollars a month (true, the overall standart in Bulgaria is very low, but still)...

Have you ever cried because you were so annoyed? Yes, sometimes it’s very difficult for me to reach my anger, let alone act on it, so yes, it’s not difficult to become annoyed (primarily with myself) to the point of tears.. 

Who did you last see in person? My boyfriend - we live together, so I see him quite a lot... :D

Are you listening to music right now? Yes, Opeth - Patterns in the ivy 2. It’s a beautiful ballad and I got it under my skin, totally... I take pride in my musical taste [which includes Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Dead can dance, Depeche mode, Bjork, The National etc., etc. I’m quite snob, really]

Does it have anything to do with what you’re doing right now? Nope, like I said, it’s under my skin, I listen to it 10 times a day, at least...

Personality description. I'm very shy even in my old age - that’s the main reason for me to communicate so little, even here on tumblr... Somehow it’s still difficult to click with people... It takes time for me to grasp things, but when I start to, I’m usually quite good at it.. I’m the great procrastinator and it’s got a lot to do with my innate sense of inferiority - it’s much easier to be a failure, than to risk failing, if you know what I mean. I’m a very loyal friend and I would do almost anything for my very few true friends... I can be a real ass sometimes, but I try to compensate in other situations... I could be funny in a vulgar and harmless sort of way...

Have you ever been to New York City? No

Birthday and age? May, 27 (btw, Alex, it makes sense that you’re Aquarius... You are, aren’t you?)

Are your crushes mainly girls or guys? Guys, I guess. I have a love-hate relationship with Emma Watson that’s currently in it’s full-blown state, because she’s everywhere... Probably, because I’ve always identified myself with Hermione...

Favorite quote? Hmm, quite difficult. I like Hermann Hesse a lot. But maybe, Camus’: “We all carry within us our places of exile, our crimes, and our ravages. But our task is not to unleash them on the world; it is to fight them in ourselves and in others.”

Something you want to learn? Too many things, most of them really basic - swimming, riding a bicycle, how to do my job properly, drawing, editting in Photoshop... like I said - basic stuff...

Favorite subject in school? Literature, undoubtedly... It’s always been my dream for my job to be related to books... I’ve alway loved history, too, because I have a really great ability to memorize just about anything...

Relationship status? Taken

Favorite book(s)? A very difficult question... Harry Potter is maybe the book-love of my life and recently I tried to reread it - I was very disappointed with myself that I don’t find it so interesting anymore (maybe because I have it all memorized). Dostoevsky’s books - particularly, The Idiot and The Youth. Milorad Pavic, who is the most original author, ever, I think. Some Bulgarian literature - poetry mostly: Yavorov, Debelyanov, they’re classics for us. Also, Narcissus and Goldmund, Demian by Hermann Hesse, Ibsen’s dramas, Pratchett’s series about the witches, Death, Tiffany Aching(!!)... I used to love Verlaine’s poetry very much.

Favorite fictional character? Well, Hermione Granger, of course. I suppose she’s the idol for every one of us.. I used to be pretty enraptured with Dostoevsky’s neurotic characters when I was in my teens (let me tell, identifying with those sort of characters doesn’t facilitate a healthy mental state). I don’t know, I think for every book I’ve read (even the very stupid ones) I’ve invested some kinds of feelings towards one or more characters... Otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to finish it... 

Favorite fictional couple? Well, I’m quite the Dramione freak (in case my blog hasn’t tipped you off on that one), I’m able to read most ships as long as it involves Hermione - with Theo, Ron, Sirius or Remus here & there. For some strange reason though I dislike any Draco pairing that doesn’t involve Hermione. I’m very possessive of him that way.. I like Luna and Theo very much, I think Ron and Luna works really well, too... 

Something I’m talented at. Noticing details and taking photos... I really loved it, but with time it’s become more and more difficult to indulge in that hobby - my models have become too busy with real life, analogue is too expensive for me and so on and on... If you’re curious, you can see a select few (it’s not been updated for at least three years, but I haven’t done much shooting in that time, either) of my stuff here

I tag: @colubrina, @amortentiaforenemies, @anaidra29 and @unknown-authoress  

[agencytheatercollective]

I’m Always There - Tashina Richardson

This series will help acquaint you with the talented weirdos who are (almost) always at No Shame Theatre every Saturday night. Here’s Ms. Richardson. 

Who the hell are you? A Texas transplant who found a bunch of weirdos to hang out with (almost) every Saturday.

Why do you seem so familiar to me? I probably don't? Unless you're like "who's the blonde girl that's not Anna Lucero?"

What the hell do you perform at No Shame? Movement/dance pieces, primarily. But I've written some stream-of-consciousness stuff (most of it involves yelling at men), and done a few original songs as well.

What draws you to movement theatre? I'm gonna be vain and quote myself here, although it's in relation to movement as an exercise rather than performance: "Good movement exercises let you figure out how to relax into your character and naturally react to the people around you without TELLING you to do it. The actor becomes a proactive part of the process, creating in the moment, rather than just taking direction and figuring out how to motivate action later." It's a little different on the No Shame stage than in a fully-realized production, but I believe the intent is the same. Creating in the moment and naturally reacting to environment are important aspects of performing for me, and I feel most comfortable doing those through movement. (Click here if you want to read more of me yammering on about movement.)

Who/What are you favorite artists/songs to move/dance to? Radiohead. Radiohead. Radiohead. Bjork, Adele, Sigur Rós, The Cinematic Orchestra, Sia, Alt-J... and Radiohead.

How’d you get started coming to No Shame? My friend Cody is a member of The Agency, and he along with Billy Baraw had mentioned it to me before I moved to Chicago. I decided to experience my first No Shame on July 18, 2015 - which also happened to be my birthday. I haven't looked back... except that one time, when I thought someone was following me.

Do you have any favorite f**cking No Shame memories? I've seen a ton of good stuff at No Shame, but my favorite memories are probably when I yell at men after the show because they spout some sexist crap at me. (I wouldn't normally say "crap" but I don't know if this is PG-13 or if Ethan and Huck are gonna whip out their wangs.)

Have you ever gotten engaged to someone you met at No Shame?? HOW DID YOU KNOW?!?!? I did actually meet my fiancé at No Shame. I proposed to him on our one year anniversary with an art print from The Lincoln Loft that says "Bill You Murray Me?" He's a musician named Josh Rowe. Go like his Facebook page and buy his albums so that he gets rich and we can afford a wedding.

I like the cut of your jib, Ms. Richardson.  I have a bunch of non sequitur questions for you now.

What’s up, doc? Shhh. Be vewy vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits.

You and Whose Army? Come on. Come on.

What's the most you ever lost on a coin toss? I'm not sure, but I used to eat coins all the time as a child. I hope the sewer monsters got all of it and took it to the casino!

Who framed Roger Rabbit? Christopher Lloyd? I think. Let's be honest, we were all too busy imagining what it'd be like to bang Jessica Rabbit. Or Bob Hoskins. Or both.

Are we human or are we dancer? We are all The Killers. The Killers are we.

Lastly, is there anything you’re working on now that you’d like to promote? How kind of you to ask! I am actually starting rehearsals on an original play called "ID," which I created with my friend Brittany Alyse Willis through our multi-city arts collective, Lady Square Arts. The play is like a millennial post-modern The Iceman Cometh. The production runs February 17-19 and 24-26 at The Lincoln Loft - if you come on a Saturday, you can stay afterwards for No Shame!

[literature-islit]

Synecdoche, New York (2008)

I have this thing about movies, where I spend, like, probably twice as long flicking between rotten tomatoes reviews and a film’s synopsis on Wikipedia, worrying, hesitating and second guessing over whether the film is going to be worth my time than the time it would take to watch a bad movie. and yet i used to watch entire seasons of keeping up with the kardashians  i think it’s good to be selective about the media you consume. 

anyway. 

What sold me onto watching this film was a review on rotten tomatoes stating: “of course, being a Charlie Kaufman film, it gets a little weird”. Having never heard of Charlie Kaufman before, i was like - good weird, or bad weird? but eventually gave in and pressed play on the movie and whew

let me tell you 

a replica of an apartment block to act out things that really happened with actors of actors of people…

This movie is WEEEEIRD. Good weird! Maybe one of THE GREATEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME. 

Okay, so the beginning is a little mundane. There’s this guy named Caden, a theatre director way past his prime, and it plays into a little literary cliché i first saw identified in a GoodReads review of Dave Egger’s A Hologram For The King:

I'm going to need the publishing industry to start putting on warning labels for Modern American Middle-Aged Upper-Middle-Class White Male Pathetic Protagonists, because I am all done with them. No more crazy bitch ex-wives, no more weird medical issues that strike at their sense of mortality, no more managing to bang (poorly) hotter younger ladies (who are also, of course, crazy) even during their downward spiral, no more disconnect with their flighty and disappointed children, no more random heavy drinking or drug experimentation

All this written by a reviewer named Kim G. Kim G, i don't wanna steal your IP but I had to reference it here because it is a recurrent story structure that I hadn’t fully identified until I saw it expressed in this way, and Synecdoche, New York, initially follows that exact pattern: crazy ex-wife, weird medical issue striking at sense of mortality, many hotter young women throwing themselves at the protagonist, disconnect with his child, downward spiral... 

nooooo i’m sorry, no shade, no shade; i’m not going to continue to analyse this film in terms of the “white male” paradigm because i think it has transcendental value

So the film proceeds along for the first thirty minutes, with the aforementioned medical issues, marital disharmony, disconnect with child, career success sabotaged by personal doubt, younger secretary thirsting for protagonist AND THEN

THINGS GET WEIRD

Hazel, the woman who works at the box office of his theatre, goes house hunting. And the house she decides to buy is on fire and stays that way throughout the entire film. 

THINGS GET SYMBOLIC

Caden’s therapist defies the restraints of time and space to appear beside him and read over his shoulder every time he opens the self-help book she bullied him into buying, authored by herself. 

It’s all very Bjork, Bachelorette 

charlie Kaufmann was inspired by this director. I read it on wikipedia. 

if you watch that film clip, you kind of get an idea of the themes of the movie as well. A play within a play. A movie that externally manifests the events of real life, to be obsessively directed and re-directed: the inability to determine a plot or conclusion for the play as a reflection of the stunted growth of a character unable to step outside of his problems and progress or learn. 

Does that sound a little depressing? Maybe. But you'll be way more in awe of how far the play within a play metaphor is taken to find too much time to be depressed. The book is like a combination of Gore Vidal’s description of Tennessee Williams as a man who compulsively wrote plays 

so that he could, like God, rearrange his original experience into something that was no longer God’s and unpossessable, but his.

and the following two books:

These books ask questions similar to – if you were to make a map of the world in full size, and spread it out over the world, and live on the map instead of the real world, what would be lost? 

And – what about when we stop making maps of places that do exist, and start making maps of imaginary places such as Disneyland – what connection do these maps of fake places have to real life? 

makesyouthink.gif 

my mum told me

But back to the movie. Finally, Caden, whose obsessive recreations of the traumatic events of his real life have failed to enable him to transcend his failings, grows tired of the burden of playing director of the immense and bloated replica of his New York city apartment complex that he has built inside a warehouse. It’s been 20 years or something, the cast are growing old, and still he’s not ready to declare the play ready to perform. Finally, he surrenders, allowing the woman cast to play his ex-wife’s cleaner (who he’s never met ... ya it’s hard to explain) to take over his role, and he takes over her role as the cleaner, begins to live in the set, and allows the order to direct his life through instructions delivered via an earpiece in his ear.

Progress – you think?

NO. Spoiler alert – this character doesn’t change at all. In fact, his last piece of dialogue in the film is joy at having had an epiphany for how his play should change – which we never get to hear.

the director acting as the cleaner who has taken over his role as director

It’s really moving. I mean, I liked it. It’s a controversial one; you could really rip into some aspects of it for being (I’m quoting some reviews here) “boring” or “hollow”, but i’d argue that’s the point. Anyway Kaufman, who despite having multiple subreddits dedicated to appreciating his genius as a writer, recently gave an interview about how much he thinks he blew his career, and how he’s gotta pay his mortgage, so I’m heartened to learn he’s got a Netflix special out soon, and a book on the cusp of being released, even if the AV Club review of said book is entitled: With His Massive Debut Novel, Charlie Kaufman Disappears Up His Own Ass. 

I’ll still read it. 

[yespoetry]

An Interview with Joshua Byron & Chariot Birthday Wish on Queerness and Art

By Joshua Byron & Chariot Birthday Wish

Editor’s Note: grammar and punctuation aesthetic have been largely preserved for authenticity and tone.

Joshua: We are chatting and checking in with each other on the 4th of July, a honeysuckled day of nostalgia, dogmatism, and fear. I recently began releasing a webseries Trans Monogamist with Alfredo Franco and Artless Media and Chariot Birthday Wish recently released his new book of poetry, hot pearl. 

J: How is the weather in Philadelphia- if that's where you are now; it's so hot here in New York. I was invited to a million things but part of me just wants to try and drink some iced coffee and lay down and watch a Derek Jarman movie or something. Perform that kind of tired queerness. 

I wanted to talk about your poetry, and your latest work, and also how your work maybe functions as haiku. I was reading Barthes on haiku recently who idolized haiku as a sort of perfect form. The perfect image, something that collapses time inward. And that makes me think of your work- a collapsed inward image. But also like, fun and bubbly. Effervescent. 

C: It’s hot in, sticky in philadelphia, i am currently home now. were in the humid thunderstorm loop here but i dont think a storm is going to break for another few days. im going to go smoke weed on mikayla’s roof later today, other then that i've been playing katamari and drinking ice water while drawing all day.

people mention haiku to me a lot, because i write small, few word poems, with a focus on natural imagery. I honestly don’t read much haiku, and wouldn’t site it as a direct source of inspiration, or say that ive studied the form. i do think my work resonates with a similar drive and spirit of haiku though, and i hold a dear reverence for the form.

i love that quote “the perfect image” and “something that collapses time inward” my intent of form for writing poems is absolutely trying to expand a space, a moment, an emotion, memory, as wide and deep as possible with as few words as i possibly can. i really focus a lot on creating complete and whole worlds inside my poems, but its subtle because they are such small poems. my work has a lot of play in it, i think my tone of voice always has an air of play to it. 

J: I think for me I think of the succinctness of your work, more so than scale. Sometimes your work even if it isn't about apocalypse, feels very tied to that, the event, the feeling, the fear, the expression of it and often I think your work has mechanical feelings in it, these references to the Matrix or like using human concepts in regards to natural things. I think a lot of some of your work that lists desires and those desires bend to human concepts, not natural ones. 

I think that the bubbling of your work feels like it could go on forever, like how do you decide to end a poem or even a collection? In hot pearl or hell ship or i love you, here's a gigantic worm? 

C: yes ! i think most of my work, comes from a place of constant consideration of apocalypse. And consideration of technology ! ive always been really inspired by and into sci-fi, cyberpunk ie: the matrix.  i love to reference technology for sure. interweaving technology into nature and natural images, one function of that for me is about desire. desire for connection, for access. i think about texting my friends from the middle of the woods, and the simultaneous understanding of the link to earth + self, emotionally and also physically! But I also do think that technology and mechanics are a part of nature, and “the natural world.”

humans are a part of nature and we created these things. there’s this Bjork quote where she says that “You can use pro tools and still be pagan”. I’m really into the idea of using technology as tools of divination and holy connection with nature. I imagine a scene; being in moss, it’s absolute bliss, and then the connection of texting, sharing an image of moss with a friend, sharing that moment through cellular towers, and then that sneaking sense of apocalypse like earth Is going to melt.

and knowing that those moments of sharing and experiencing the absolute magic and heavenly nature of is not going to be possible anymore because humans are melting earth. I’m trying to hold all of these goods things weighted with that, the frantic fear of losing something so special. Its very cyberpunk to me. and then yeah !!!! its driven by desire!  if i think of it now, a have a lot of poems that say “i want”i want so much... 

with books, I usually decide on a number of pages first its very straight forward. im like okay this book is going to be 20 pages or 100 pages. with poems, if i read it and i have my emotions and vision echoed back to me, then its done ! I try to make myself cry, and I am always trying to write what I think is the perfect poem. i do try to spend a collective hour editing each poem, but usually i just know when its done. Not to be obtuse. 

J: How do you think desire plays a role in the work that you do? 

Your work has such striking images - things I think are (I hate this word) but striking and original. I'm thinking of even the word "hell ship" for instance or "hot pearl," the fag poem, "superintendent of the golf course," "my flowering boyhouse," and the specificity of the "i want.”

The images feel free from societal cliches and expectations, like a weaving of a fantasy world. I don't know if I have a question, I mostly just wanted to say that. It seems just very sprung from your mind, very specific. It's not that there aren't poetic traditions that predate or intertwine with yours, but I think in some ways it feels very Greek (Sappho, perhaps?) in its directness, in its wink, in its boldness.

I also wanted to hear you speak on the fag poem, it feels so essential and tears me apart. 

C: i love to meditate on the feeling of desire, and feel desire. i also think that the reason i make art comes from a similar part in my emotional body as my desire. its an expression of that desire, as well as a manifestation of desire, i really long to create art and i love to make art about desire. its such a full and intricate emotion.

Recently I read a definition of “eros” as the opposite of “death wish” the antithesis of the call of the void, that eros is an absolute will to live and desire to experience. That’s the well of desire I channel my creativity through. which i think relates a lot to your mention of sappho. i read a lot of sappho, her voice and her form (specifically too how we just have fragments of her poems, and what that does to the form of her work) has something that i draw a lot of inspiration from. absolutely the way she, and other translations of greek text (ive been reading the iliad for 2 years).  

i do also 100% imagine all of my poetry to take place in a specific and complete realm, in a fantasy world. that idea, of creating a whole separate place, lexicon, and memeplex was one of my first visions and drives as a poet.

the fag poem: i also started it with wanting to write "a fag anthem" which is not usually how i write poems, with a specific thesis for the poem. its an ode to faggots, a faggot declaration, but one from a place of reclamation driven by pain. 

J: How do phones play a role in your life or your poetry? Your poems do include references to downloading pics of horses, or texting in the woods, or just texting or staring even. but i also wonder about the idea of writing on phones and what that means poetically and structurally. 

What is your relationship to social media and Instagram? it mystifies me! you have a following and i wonder how that feels and how that is tied up in art-making, glo worm, distribution, and if it matters to you or if you have any feelings of community or fracture over how the internet works? In regards to the above, what are your thoughts on looks, or pulling looks? The politics, the aesthetics, the joys of looks? Are you pro look? Anti-look? 

C: its a little trick of mine to add a reference to a phone in a poem. i think that phones are so intimate. i have an intimate relationship to my phone, and theyre magically little devices. i try to capture that magic when referencing "downloading pictures of horses" or looking at pictures of birds on your phone. thats also tied to apocalypse though, sometimes im writing from a space of thinking about animal extinction, when certain animals are gone and but we still have access to photos of them on the archive of the internet. our phones being a connection to that archive. 

i love social media. i love connection ! im def in the camp of holding closer to the positives of social media, outside of my paranoia about facebook and the surveillance state and like, influencers, etc. i just want to share my art with people and reach people. it feels good to be connected with people who like my art and to be an artist. i can unpack that for hours though.

There are times when being seen, and watched by a following is overwhelming. I think there can be a tendency for people to view you just as the single dimension of what they see online. I def have an online persona, and have built an image, altho thats also complicated and confusing because that image and persona is not a lie, just a crystallization of parts of myself. but I don’t really concern myself too much with that anymore. People can see me how they want. I am highly protective of parts of myself and my life 

i love looks. i got into art as a kid because i wanted to be a fashion designer. as a transsexual gay faggot virgo born the week of beauty, aesthetics are very important to me ! in that, the play and fantasy of looks are important to me. i do believe that aesthetics are empty. especially in this year of 2019. and i think holding that in mind can create buoyancy for the play of looks, of pulling a look. its about fantasy and expression. i also find power in it. recently to combat my social anxiety, ill wear elf ears to non-costume events, as it subverts my paranoia of being stared at for being a fag freak. i like giving people a reason to stare at me, a fag freak. 

J: Tell me about your influences. Who gives you visions? Tell me about the knife? tell me about Keanu Reeves, the Matrix, and your celebrity icons?

C: Techno music gives me visions, the ocean gives me visions, the forest, the planets give me visions. Bjork gives me visions, Bruce Springsteen, Gregg Araki, Wong Kar Wei, Anohni, Greek mythology, Faggots and their Friends Between Revolutions, Kazuko Shiraishi, the color red, the color blue, Cocteau Twins, dream pop, pop music, Brokeback Mountain.

to me, the knife, is a perfect vision of pop +freakdom + communism + mysticism. Its apocalyptic gay communist dance music, deeply mystic lyrics. it's everything I search for in art in one project, I cannot believe the knife.

the Matrix, simply to me, is about following your destiny. to me it's about actualizing the godly calling, your godly calling, your vision for yourself. it's so virgo, bringing together the celestial and the earth. 

Keanu is just so beautiful; i think it's a trans guy thing. me and him have very similar birth charts. i love my playful relationship with celebrity icons. i feel tepid to "stan" people and celebrities. Icons are false, kill your idols, blah blah blah. but its a gay thing also to have icons, and its a part of that fantasy. 

J: Talk more about elf ears and giving people a reason to look at you?

C: id just rather give people something truly freaky to look out, rather than just the spectacle of my visibly trans body. its a transsexual thing for me for sure, or like informed by my medicalized trans body, modifying my body, fantasy cyborg, morphing my tool (my body)!

J: Are there any other body mods that really seem exciting? 

Did you have a spiritual upbringing or have any spiritual practices now?

What does healing the earth look like to you?

What does healing self and community look like to you?

C: i love getting pierced recently..also obviously tattoos, as a tattoo artist and someone who gets tattoos. if they knew how to dick surgery good i would do that. maybe someday theyll get it. im getting top surgery this year.

i was loosely raised catholic. i do candle magic and ritualistic intention setting.

full ! communist ! revolution now ! fully paid reparations ! returning stolen land back to its people ! and high tech cleaning of the oceans, permaculture, rebuilding of the rainforests. returning Nikola Tesla’s ideas and designs back to the people. 

community looks like responsibility. I’ve been thinking recently about how self healing happens with community healing, and when you put your time and heart into community, it heals your heart. I think we’re deep in a culture of individualistic healing, and it’s alienating. Workers of the world unite.

Chariot: what is your relationship to fantasy ? idle cosmopolitan, your first mini series, is full of ghosts, tarot readings, an alternate world. it felt like it was brushing against a suggestion of magic, also the way time + space is expressed in the series, it has a morphing quality. trans monogamist doesn't really carry those themes through, besides the astral projection class ( a little hint at the magic”  is there still fantasy in this second work ? 

J:  I think for me I don't see Idle Cosmopolitan as that fantastical; how hard is it to believe a world with spirits of some kind? Even if they aren't expressed the way they are expressed in fantasy novels or TV. The everydayness of magic. For me, fantasy is similar to queerness in that it means possibility. Hope. Optimism through pain. Most fantasy is born through quests and pain, the classic Arthurian tale.

I think for me, that's the root of it. I read so much fantasy when I was kid. I was obsessed with Arthurian lore, castles, Pokemon, Digimon, the Green Knight, all of it. I think that Trans Monogamist is fantastical in some ways, I've heard Broad City described as a fantastical NYC, as has SATC and almost any show about people in NYC. So in that sense, yeah. Where every corner has people to date. And of course, while I do exist as a NB Carrie Bradshaw in real life, that concept is a sort of fantasy of its own. 

C: What’s your relationship to technology and that aspect of film-making? 

J: Technology worries me. I read Carceral Capitalism last summer and felt worried, as always, by the rise of surveillance and predictive policing. I think I understand why some people chose paths of craft over content, but I also don't think it's always a strict binary.

But to be fair, at a certain point you can often only know so much about one or the other. You can focus on learning more and more about craft and technology and lenses or you can focus on plot, characters, drama... Or you can do both! I just don't know that many people who end up able to do both. It's a lot of effort and time and money just to do that learning. I do think there are cracks for the light in technology to come forth. It's how we met! But I find myself often pessimistic about it. But I don't want to come across as a technology grump either. I can be modern occasionally. 

C: do you think you are expressing a part your self through the main characters of your work? you act as both of them, i wonder what your relationship to self portrait is? if the self insert is significant or, how is that self insert significant to you? is it that no one else could properly portrays these characters?

J: I definitely think of my work as self-portraiture. I think part of it just that I'm making work about things that I go through, I'm making work DIY, and it can be easier (and harder) to self direct. It's also, of course, cheaper, than trying to find someone else and guide them to a place you feel deeply. I think for a while I felt uncomfortable about appearing in my own work but now I"m pretty numb to it. It just sort of feels like the kind of work that I'm making now. I think it felt required. If we're thinking of the path, we're thinking of flow, it just felt like the next step in making art.

Also, for me, it's important to make work specific and not too broad. I want to talk about what my queerness, what my life is like, and I don't want to speak for someone else at all.  

C: what is your process like for writing, and editing your video work? you're a workaholic right? can you talk about that process ? your relationship to that?

J: I am such a workaholic. I mean we are doing writing work on the 4th of July!! I have three projects in different stages right now. Video work is usually much more collaborative. There's a free fall element to not having all the control. It's scary and it's also how I push myself to not be a total control freak and to push myself to be a better artist. I do believe in community and collaboration I just also have an intense drive to sort of speed through things and make and create and there's certainly an element of capitalism that has infused me with needing to DO things. It's not my best quality!

But it also is a strength. I like to create! And sometimes that urge is so strong that sometimes I do need to do things alone. I think it's important to balance collaborative work with solo work, you need outlets! So sometimes I write alone, sometimes I don't. My video work often involves at least 16 people in the cast. And Trans Monogamist was all about co writing and co starring with Alfredo Franco and having Artless Media being such a big guiding and production force. 

C: What’s your relationship to tropes and pop? 

J: I think I love tropes, astrology, SATC quizzes, all of those kinds of things. I think the boxes we fit in or don't fit in both do and don't speak about our personhood. Sometimes we put too much stock into them, sometimes too little.

Queer tropes of course are such a fundamental part of online queer culture and also can be so toxic but also very healing! I think the way queer culture fractures and floats online definitely influences my work, but I try to engage playfully. There are things in queer online culture I feel serious about- in terms of supporting funds that support black trans woman or fundraisers for surgeries. But in terms of other queer iconographies and categories I try to just absorb and play. I think little of my online presence has to do with replicating those memes or ideas.

If anything it's about crafting my own identity that picks apart at random things like Carrie, an occasional look. Trans Monogamist definitely skates around and jokes a lot about types of gays while also recognizing that RIver is their own type of gay and while River jokes about hating gay graphic designers or art gays, River is an art gay. It's just that claiming identity feels scary to River, so they sort of dash over or around it and try and just be a person. Someone described TM as a show that tries hard to categorize people.

I don't know how I fit. I'm an art gay I guess. Nonbinary sometimes seems to be ascribed its own internet aesthetic but I don't know how i fit in that or don't. If anything I think there are certain binaries of queerness that I do identify on.

C: What trope am I?

J: You're definitely an alt-art gay as well, but on a different side of things? There's def a type of gay that does tattoos, is trans, loves communism, and cowboy imagery. 

C: right, what you said also got me thinking about tropes as language, theyre identifying words, and that shapes our understandings of ourselves and our experiences. and there is so much play i think, in queer culture between collective experience and personal experience. 

J: I think I worry a bit about the ways we seem to gravitate towards locks and keys as ways of conceptualizing identity. And yet, I do that! So who am I to say that? I think it's best to let everyone feel their identity the way they feel it, even if that's not how I feel it. Right? What does that hurt/what does it heal? It certainly heals someone else and probably doesn't hurt me, excluding hatred, of course. Plus, sometimes someone's experience or a collective's experience help us- we say that's me! or that's definitely not me! 

C: can you say more about territory? how does pop, or mass culture, bring us into territory? 

J: What's the difference between populist and popular? Is there one? Can something that's populist be destructive, can it be healing? Is liking what the people like somehow revolutionary or is it bad? Are we as a people healing bending towards justice or not? It's a tricky counter situation. Plenty of things we probably think are good are considered bad, and vice versa. so sometimes seems revolutionary and sometimes doesn't.

But it does remind me of the way Bergman is against symbolism-reading in his work, Susan Sontag's against interpretation, Patti Smith's writing about not trying to read a message into literature. I'm not sure i wholly agree, but the idea of the sign as uninterpretable or as a mirror is interesting. Of course these are also mostly people with a romantic idea of art and plenty of people believe in interpreting art and for good reason. Works can be about race, class, gender, etc., and also have images that can't be broken down. It can be both.

Joshua Byron is a nonbinary storyteller based in Brooklyn. Their work includes the webseries Trans Monogamist co-created with Alfredo Franco and Artless Media, Idle Cosmopolitan with Glo Worm Press, as well as the zine Sincere Hate. Previously they have written dating columns and lyrical essays for Bushwick Daily, the Body Is Not An Apology, Yes Poetry, and more. Their films have been screened at Sarah Lawrence College, the Indianapolis LGBT Film Festival, Secret Project Robot, and more. They love Ursula K LeGuin, rose soap, and lots of coffee.

chariot wish is an artist and angel living in philadelphia. theyve seen the matrix 28 times in 2 years and love horses.

[chorusfm]

Sir Sly on Repurposing Tragedy with ‘Don’t You Worry, Honey’

On the eve of the release of their sophomore album, I sat down with the trio from Sir Sly at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles to discuss their excitement about the new music, the breakout success of “High,” the personal events behind the album, and why they never want to be outworked. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. How’s album release week going? Hayden Coplen: Busy. Landon Jacobs: Yeah, prerelease week has been buuusy, with like nine u’s. We’ve been doing production rehearsals, a lot of running around town, and meetings and interviews. It’s been great, though. Hayden put it best a minute ago. He said, “It’s absolutely worth putting all the time and energy into supporting the album, because it wouldn’t feel right not to.” We put so much energy into making the album that it would be completely wrong to not put all that energy into supporting it as well. Coplen: Did you see the Radiohead oral history that was out? The Rolling Stone one? Yeah, yeah. Coplen: There’s that one part, I can’t remember if it’s Jonny or Thom, where he says, “We had to earn the right to go away.” That was their goal as a band, which I thought was really interesting. Now you think of them as a band that is very picky, says no to a lot of stuff, but they were saying we said yes until we had earned the right to say no. That’s a fair approach. I like that approach. Does it feel a lot different than when you released your first album? Coplen: Yeah. Jacobs: The excitement surrounding this album release has felt very different, even from things like radio interviews and stuff. The people asking us questions, there’s that intangible feeling people care more this time around. Maybe that’s because it’s obvious we care more. Coplen: I think there’s more to grab onto, honestly. Showing personality can be hard. To be candid, we felt that on the first album in a lot of ways. Jacobs: It was easier to be mysterious than it was to come across as confident, normal folks who are just pursuing what we love to do, which is making music. The making of the second album, there was no way we could come out on the other side and not feel confident about what we did, because we spent so much time on it. Even to make the songs the way we did, for me to write about the things I did lyrically, I had to take a leap of faith in some ways. The fact that Jason and Hayden were so supportive and confident in me throughout that time too did wonders for us feeling like we could really step out and do what we want to do in music videos and talk about ourselves the way we want to be able to talk about ourselves. It seems the excitement that people have waiting for the album to come out, or the questions they have about it, is a little more earnest. It seems that everyone is a little more excited than they were for the first album. Does Chase Kensrue still tour with you guys? Jacobs: He does not, unfortunately. There’s a hole in our heart that we filled with a giant plush brain, and some lighting and some gear. That’s maybe the easiest reason. Coplen: We wish they were here. Touring is hard. Jacobs: There’s a big gap in between. Coplen: Yeah, there’s a big gab between being a small band and being a band that can adequately support everyone. Jacobs: That first album cycle we were not quite kids, but I don’t really feel like I was an adult, though. This break of two years since we last toured in earnest is that exact timeline where if we’re not on the road, it’s time for us to move on and pursue other things. So we gave them a pat on the back and blessings. Hopefully we can keep on getting more gear to fill that hole in our hearts [laughter]. You’re originally from over there in Orange County, right? Jacobs: Yeah, so we grew up listening to Thrice. Jason Suwito: We grew up in Mission Viejo and Irvine. Jacobs: I remember the first time I met Chase. I was like, “You look eerily familiar.” Coplen: I was inner fanboying when Dustin was at the show. Jacobs: We went and got Mexican food with him one time, and I was like, “Dude, I saw you guys at the Wiltern!” It was Thrice, Brand New and mewithoutYou. Those were like my three favorite bands in one concert back then. I was like, “Oh my god!!” And then I’m sharing nachos that were made on Doritos with Dustin. Dustin was like, “You gotta try these [laughter].” Coplen: In between talking about C.S. Lewis. Jacobs: I was like, “Sure, I guess I’ll try some Doritos with cheese melted on top of them.” It was insane. So I know you went through some stuff in between records, which shows up on the album a lot. What was it like putting that into words and writing about it? Jacobs: A lot nicer than living in it. One of my favorite quotes about songwriting is Bjork saying it’s like exorcising demons, which doesn’t sound like much of a choice. Either you live with demons inside of you or you have to figure a way to get them out. The moment I read that I was like, Yeah, that’s exactly what it feels like. If I let these things sit and fester, I don’t find a way to creatively work through them. I like to categorize things in that way. So the album and writing these lyrics was one part necessity and another part a fun adventure of figuring out how to repurpose all these really shitty things that happened in my life into something that felt like I had purpose in. Loving music as much as I do, I wanted to make something I was so proud of that every night on tour I could go back and be thankful for the fact I get to repurpose three really difficult years into what I feel like is an amazing album. In one of your other interviews I was reading you said you wanted to write about tragedy but still have it be a fun album. Jacobs: Yeah. Similarly as I was going through when my mom died and as I got divorced, I was living alone for the first time ever in my life. I was also going out in L.A. and stuff. I was beginning to really love certain types of dance music, and dancing myself. We would go to Funky Soul Night at the Echo or whatever it was. Or I’d be alone in my apartment, dancing to Prince. I realized I wanted something that was fun for people to come and see live. We all wanted that because life is equally serious, and should be. People are always striving to have that levity, to be able to turn something tragic into something positive. The fact that we’re all still here is cause for celebration. That was kind of the thing. I have to sit and take a mental image when I’m getting stressed or getting anxious, like when we had a really difficult travel day. But at the end of it, I’m like, “Wow, that was a nightmare. But nobody’s sick. Nobody’s hurt. Nobody’s going to die. We all made it.” That’s something I’ve been constantly reminding myself of. This album, because of that, I wanted to have cause for celebration. If you come out to a show, we’re not here to weigh you down. We’re here to commiserate, to share what we’ve been through, and then hopefully to uplift each other. That’s the goal of the human experience. Coplen: I think the truth is, too, that there’s been a lot of joy. As we’re preparing for this, we’re working harder than we’ve ever worked, but we’re humming along. I have this visual like we’re above the fray. It feels really good. There’s not a lot of resistance. Everyone is in lockstep, from the band members to the team. It’s a really rare feeling. I think a lot of it stems from the record ultimately being a bit of a celebration. Jacobs: There’s a bit of magic to not taking yourself so seriously that it’s like, My mom died, therefore I have to be a sad, sappy sack of shit for the next album. There was a freedom in being able to say I still like having a good time. I miss my mom, but my mom wouldn’t want me to wallow away and make the equivalent of a Conor Oberst, drinking a gallon of vodka a day, weeping alone in my room record. That’s not the way I want to look back and see how I handled these past couple years. And, yeah, getting divorced is sad, but it’s also freeing. So there is a bit of that, too. There is the juxtaposition of the depth of grief, but I was living in a pretty free situation as well. We all wanted to reflect that accurately through the making of the record. What’s it been like seeing “High” get as big as it’s gotten so far? Jacobs: Magical. It’s the best. Apart from writing the song in the first place, and apart from making the album in the first place, the best feeling in the world is having people appreciate what you do and take it into their own. People don’t listen to music lightly. Some people do, but a lot of people are very specific about the kind of music they choose. It means a great deal to them. People are proud of their music tastes. In order to break through that barrier and have so many people love the song, it’s even nicer now that I stop and think. Everybody has their own unique taste and it’s really cool to be accepted that way by so many different people. It’s great. Coplen: Today I was doing an interview on that same point. We ended up talking about people disliking songs. When we wrote it, we all had a very good feeling about “High.” I brought up the example of Landon’s brother, who heard it and was like, “Oh, I don’t like that song.” Jacobs: He got through the first pre-chorus where it goes “Feels good to be…” and then the chorus came on and he turned it off. We were driving in his car. He turned it off and was like, “I don’t like that one.” I was like, “OK, let’s go into Walgreens.” He was like, “I don’t mean to be a dick.” And I was like, “No, it’s good.” If we can make something that some people don’t like, hopefully it means that other people are going to love it. Instead of it being in an acceptable middle range where everybody goes, “Eh, that’s OK music.” I’d rather have some people go, “I hate that. It reminds me of this other thing I hate.” And then somebody else goes, “I love that for these reasons.” I’d rather be polarizing than be the lowest common denominator that everybody can enjoy. Was the video fun to shoot? Jacobs: Absolutely. Suwito: Yeah, that was the funnest one. Jacobs: It was one of the hardest days. I’ve never seen a group of people work that hard just in general, from the people part of set design to the choreographer to the crew to Kevin, who directed it. All these people were running around on set, working crazy and so hard. But at the end of the day, it seemed like everybody was energized. They were either friends of friends or people who’ve worked together before. It was a really fun, open environment. And also they saw how hard we were working, too. It’s nice when everybody is in that same space together and you can look around and see everybody working hard. Nobody is slacking off or not giving a shit. Even at the end of a very long day, which was at the end of a very long week and after a couple long months of making this music video, it was nice to feel like everybody had given 100 percent. We had all worked tirelessly and it didn’t seem like there was any bitterness across the board from anybody that had worked on it. Which is a testament to hopefully the fun we wanted to have making the video and our resolution to never have anybody work harder than we work on our own stuff. I don’t want anybody to ever put us on their back and to look back with any bitterness. I want to know we gave it our all and everybody else is happy to work on the stuff we’re working on, because we care more than anybody else possibly could. What’s the story behind getting the Donnie Trumpet sample on “Change?” How did that idea come out? Coplen: That was me. There was a time where we were like, “Why did we ever do that?” And then we cleared it and were able to release the album, which is amazing. They were actually really gracious. But that one, I was on a plane. It was in the middle of writing. On a plane I love to mess with stuff, but it’s really hard to actually write. So I’m just manipulating different sounds or messing with cool drums. I was like, “Ah, let’s try to sample this.” “Miracle” is this amazing song that has such a unique feel to it. It’s very optimistic, and at the same time very morose and washed out. I ended up grabbing a piece of the end, pitching it up and using this guitar sample. In my head, it was a little bit like College Dropout-era Kanye. I don’t think it ultimately sounds like that, but that was something going through my head. Like, how warm his beats would always feel. They were so comfortable and nostalgic. It was like hanging out with an old friend or something. That’s what I was going for. Jacobs: Ironically enough, I don’t know if originally it was the pull subconsciously, but the lyric is something along the lines of “It’s a miracle to be alive.” We all knew the song, but it had been a while until I had paid attention to the lyrics. We had just been hearing that sample over and over. So the other day I went back and listened to it again, and it was so crazy. Sometimes there’s those little serendipitous moments, like that lyric is so close to what this album was for me lyrically. So to go back and hear that, I was able to go, “Yeah, that’s exactly why that sample was chosen. There is that feeling in that song.” And that goes for all the samples we use. There’s an immediate sonic and emotional pull, like, That’s this album right there. That’s that song. And we’d build from that moment. We’d never used samples before, but at the end of the day, it feels like we’re right at home using samples as a part of making an album. I think it’s something we’ll continue to do in the future. How about “Altar?” What was it like writing that song? Jacobs: That was one that started from a sample as well. Jason had made that instrumental flute thing. Suwito: Yeah, it was from an old TV theme. Jacobs: The chord progression he ended up making by repitching it brought out a really strange melody, something I don’t think I had ventured to do before. I actually had written this poem, a long metaphor using worshipping at an altar as a euphemism for oral sex. That was how it started. The poem is like three times as long as the lyrics are in the song. It turned into I had put her up on a pedestal, or the idea of love and marriage or whatever it was. I was raised very Evangelical Christian. My parents got married when they were 18, and her parents had gotten married when they were 18. My grandparents had gotten married when they were in their early 20s. It was what everybody in my family did, and has continued to do. I had put it up as this finish line, this point where you get there and coast through the rest of life because you’ve found the person you’re going to marry and be with forever. That song was the product of that disillusionment. The starkness of the lyrics informed the way we built off that original instrumentation. The ending with the tones of gospel music comes from a place of Hayden and I growing up and playing music in church. It works really nicely with the sample. That last bit of lyrics is probably my favorite moment on the album lyrically, using my mom’s voice as a monologue telling me how to weather the storm. We originally started making this album all about my fear and anxiety. We had really minimal electronic songs and these very scared and afraid lyrics. That moment is the exact opposite. It’s me talking to myself through my mom’s voice. It’s kind of like the voicemail on “Oh Mama.” I’m always worried that will make me cry every time I hear it, so playing it onstage can be a little rollercoaster. Let’s close with “Oh Mama” then, since that’s one of the centerpieces on the album. Did the idea for that song come first? Did the music? How did you pair the two together? Jacobs: That was a song we started writing shortly after my mom had died, which was March 2016. It was totally different. It started out with a different instrumental that Jason had been working on. It was much faster. Then we ended up writing a chorus for that song, and the verse and the chorus didn’t feel quite right. So we scrapped that whole song, but I knew I always wanted to come back to working that chorus out. When Jason showed us the new instrumentals, I had also recently had a dream about my mom. We were in San Francisco. It was me, her and my dad in this apocalypse type of setting. There was all this weird stuff happening, and it stuck with me. I was in the dream telling her how difficult life has been ever since she died. She was sitting, listening, but I wasn’t explicitly saying since you died. I was saying life has been really hard. She wasn’t talking, and I was like, Oh. Maybe she doesn’t know. She had brain cancer, so she couldn’t remember things very well. She had no short-term memory, so then she couldn’t form long-term memories. In my dream, I was thinking maybe she forgot she’s supposed to be dead and that she’s not allowed to be here visiting me. That was how those verses ended up getting started, and then we took that chorus and repurposed it into the song. Did you use an actual choir for the end? Coplen: Yeah, they were awesome. They did “Altar” and “Oh Mama.” We had them for a taped live performance at one point. Jacobs: That was another really interesting thing. We used a sample from the famous movie The Color Purple in “Trippin.’” There’s that gospel line from a scene in the movie, and one of the singers was actually in the movie and a part of the recording. The choir director also co-wrote and worked on it. He was like, “I know that.” We were like, “How do you know it?” And he’s like, “I worked on it.” We were like, “Oh!” [laughter] So that was another strange, serendipitous moment. It’s been really fun. When you work as hard as we did on this album, you end up running into all kinds of strange little fun coincidences. It makes the world a lot smaller when you extend your inspirations and extend the musical boundaries. You end up running into all kinds of things like that. Don’t You Worry, Honey is out now on Spotify and Apple Music. For more information, find Sir Sly on Facebook and Twitter. --- Please consider supporting us so we can keep bringing you stories like this one. ◎ https://chorus.fm/interviews/sir-sly-on-repurposing-tragedy-with-dont-you-worry-honey/

[titoslondon-blog]

New Post has been published on Titos London

#Blog New Post has been published on http://www.titoslondon.com/askhermore-to-zac-posen-gowns-galore-instyles-a-z-of-awards-season/

#AskHerMore, To Zac Posen Gowns Galore - InStyle’s A-Z Of Awards Season

A is for…#AskHerMore

A is all about the feminist #AskHerMore red carpet movement. Pioneered by Reese Witherspoon and Amy Poehler in 2015, it’s all about changing the way media (that's us too) talks to women and encouraging them to ask better questions than just ‘'Who are you wearing?'. Because quelle surprise women have views on politics and current events as well. B is for…Bliiiiiing

And a whole lot of it. From the now infamous $2.5 million 115-carat Lorraine Schwartz emerald drop earrings that Angelina sashayed down the Oscars 2009 red carpet wearing, to Cate Blanchett’s Chopard earrings, bracelet and ring combo that cost a whopping $18 million, when it comes to standing out at an awards ceremony, it’s all about the bling. The winner of our Ultimate Bling Award? Elizabeth Taylor, obvs. The queen of more is more, Taylor’s then husband Richard Burton bought her a 69.42 carat diamond ring for $1 million but, as Elizabeth puts it, ‘Even for me it was too big. So we had Cartier design a necklace.’ Well, as we always say, when your diamond’s too big to wear as a ring, whack it on a pendant and wear it to the 1970 Academy Awards around your neck instead. Understated, who?

C is for…Charlize Theron

Who knew that Charlize Theron was such a babe? Well, we did. An epic actress (she won an Oscar for her terrifying role in Monster), a style chameleon and repping on the red carpet for taller ladies everywhere, Charlize is the ultimate awards badass and we’re obsessed.

D is for…Diversity

With Meryl Streep’s Golden Globes speech addressing immigration straight on, and the 2017 Oscar nominations finally making progress against #oscarssowhite with a black actor being nominated in all four acting categories for the first time EVER, the awards diversity drought is officially over. Hooray!

E is for…EE Rising Star Award

Arguably the most exciting award of the year (because it involves majorly hyped new talent like Ruth Negga and Tom Holland aka Spiderman) the BAFTA EE Rising Star Award is so snazzy we throw a party for it every year. Check the deets HERE.

F is for…Fancy Dress

Bjork’s swan moment, Cher’s 1986 ‘Mohawk year’ and Rihanna’s Britney-meets-Egyptian bejewelled bodystocking – yup, when it comes to red carpet dressing there’s always one that takes it to that bit too far to the realms of fancy dress. And we look forward to that one every year, natch.

G is for…Gaga

When she’s not being carried along the red carpet in an egg, wearing yesterday’s beef tartare as a dress or performing an epic ode to David Bowie with glam rock costume changes to match, Lady Gaga’s generally stealing the limelight at any and every awards show. Case in point: accepting her 2011 MTV awards in character as her male alter ego Jo Calderone. Lady Gaga going method? Groundbreaking.

H is for…Hosts (The Weird, The Wonderful And The Awkward)

The fun part about awards shows? They inevitably have to be hosted by two celebrities that would never normally talk to each other but now have to share a stage and present funny quips and bits for hours on end. A recipe for success, non? Well, if you’re hilarious comedians and besties Amy Poehler and Tina Fey presenting the 2015 Golden Globes, then yes. But if you’re Anne Hathaway attempting to present the 2011 Oscars with a possibly stoned but either way totally out of it James Franco, then alas, no.

I is for…Insta Madness

If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) 3 March 2014

If you didn’t see THAT group selfie at the 2014 Oscars, then what hole were you living in? Ellen’s celebrity studded Hollywood selfie broke the internet and started a new A-list obsession with Instagram. Just try and get through awards season without liking Chrissy Teigen’s adorable backstage pics with John Legend or Lily Collins asking your opinion on what Zuhair Murad gown she should choose. It’s all about the BTS (that’s behind-the-scenes) pics babe.

via GIPHY

J is for…Jennifer Lawrence Falling Over

via GIPHY

Doing a damn good impression of a weeble, Jennifer Lawrence can’t help falling head over heels for awards shows, literally. Tripping over her massive Dior gown on the way to receive her Best Actress Oscar back in 2013, J-Law’s tumble was surely the most Tweeted about awards moment that year. That, and her tripping over a cone. And every other time she’s totally stacked it. Jennifer, we salute your ability to power through embarrassment.

K is for…Kisses

Remember that time Angelina Jolie said she was ’so in love’ with her brother before kissing him smack on the lips at the 2000 Oscars? Well, we do. And tbh, it’s still weird. Between that and John Travolta’s surprise attack on Scarlett Johansson, awards season always seems to bring out the awkward affectionate sides of celebs (and their siblings).

L is for…Loser Face

via GIPHY

Some people can nail the perfect Joey from Friends gracious loser face, and others…well they don’t keep it together so well. Take Samuel L Jackson who, when losing the 1995 Best Supporting Actor Oscar to Martin Landau, could be see mouthing ‘Oh shit’ on screen. Or when Kanye, in true Kanye fashion, took things one step further by crashing Taylor Swfit’s VMA award win to defend losing nominee Beyonce’s honour thus beginning an A-list feud of epic proportions. A polite clap would have been fine.

M is for…Meryl Streep

via GIPHY

Officially the most nominated person EVER. That is all.

N is for…Novel Adaptations We’ve Never Read

Let’s face it, every year there’s a bazillion films nominated that are actually super intellectual novel adaptations that we’ll pretend to our ridiculously informed and cultural friends we’ve totally read but in reality we’ve just watched the movie and googled some original quotes. Soz, not soz.

O is for…Opening Numbers

Hugh Jackman’s adorable, if slightly awkward, dance number with Anne Hathaway at the 2009 Oscars, Andrew Rannell’s all singing, all dancing rendition of ‘I Believe’ from The Book Of Mormon at the 2011 Tony Awards and Neil Patrick Harris’ arguably best ever Tony Awards performance in 2013 are just a few of the awards show opening numbers to go down in history for the right reasons. We won’t mention the wrong ones.

P is for…Poor Leo

2017 aka the year Leonardo Di Caprio finally won an oscar. It’s fair to say a few people may have given up on it ever happening, including Leo himself. #poorleo.

A photo posted by Angel (@bri6427) on

Jun 30, 2016 at 8:40pm PDT

Q is for…Queen Bey

via GIPHY

If anyone else can announce their pregnancy on stage at the Grammys and bring a tear to our eye quite like Queen Bey we’ll eat our jauntily tipped purple fedora Destiny’s Child style. Lest we forget THAT game-changing Country Music Awards performance of Daddy Lessons with Dixie Chicks that we’ve listened to like 300 times. Ok fine, 500.

R is for…Red Carpet Hype

Fact – you can’t have an awards show without a red carpet, but where did it even come from? Why not a blue carpet? First thunk up by LA showman Sid Graumman in 1922, the red carpet made its debut at the first ever Hollywood premiere, Robin Hood, but didn’t make an appearance at the Oscars until 1961 when film enthusiasts watching on tv couldn’t even tell it was red because of the black and white picture. The epitome of you had to be there.

Fun fact – the carpet outside the Dolby Theatre where the Oscars are held is 500 ft long. Incidentally, just enough room for Jennifer Lawrence to fall over in.

S is for…Speech Cock Ups And General Weirdness

Part two of the awkward hosting section of our A-Z, it’s not an awards season if someone doesn’t mess up an acceptance speech, mispronounce a celeb’s name or send a worthy cause to accept the award on their behalf. Check out Miley Cyrus sending a young homeless dude called Jesse Helt to pick up her 2014 MTV Award (which he’s appaz now auctioning off, that’s gratitude for you), John Travolta classically messing up Idina Menzel’s name and Tom Hiddleston, god bless him, attempting to tell an inspirational anecdote and totally missing the mark. Oscar fails are our fave.

T is for…The Leg

Need we say more? Winning our award for best dressed at the 2012 Oscars, Angelina Jolie’s right leg made such a statement it even had its own Twitter account.

U is for…Ugly Crying

via GIPHY

Yes, it’s an emotional time for everyone, but there’s some that handle the sitch better than others. Gwyneth Paltrow was not one of them. We won’t even mention Halle Berry. Let’s just say we’d give them the Oscar for ugly crying.

V is for…Valentino

That iconic black and white dress Julia Roberts wore to win her Oscar back in 2001 that you always remember every time the Oscars rolls round again? It was Valentino. Cate Blanchett’s timeless one-shouldered yellow dress she wore for her 2005 Best Supporting Actress Oscar win? Yup, Valentino.Scarlett Johansson’s seriously major red dress that put her on the map? You guessed it, Valentino. When it comes to dressing like a winner (or dressing a winner, should we say), Valentino have got it down.

W is for…Wardrobe Malfunctions

via GIPHY

From Chrissy Teigen’s NSFW leg split to Geri Halliwell’s 1997 Brit Awards boob slip, a well-placed (pardon the pun) wardrobe malfunction gets you more column inches than actually winning an award. Our fave? J-Law’s gravity-defying dress tear that magically reattaches itself almost instantly. We geuinely don't know what happened there.

X is for…Exes

There’s nothing better than proving how totally fine you are about an overly publicised breakup by revenge winning an award literally in front of your ex. On the other hand, bumping into an ex on the red carpet isn’t exactly ideal. Oh Hollywood, you’re so small and incestuous and adorable. Brad and Angelina, we wish you good luck.

Y is for…Yellow

Black is so blah. If you want to make a statement on the red carpet it’s all about wearing yellow. Take notes from Reese Witherspoon’s post-Ryan Philippe break up LYD (little yellow dress) and Rachel from Friends fringe that was TOO good or Michelle Williams winning at life in a yellow custom Vera Wang dress that we’ve basically never got over. Nabbing the canary yellow torch and carrying it into 2017, Emma Stone’s red hair, pink lips, yellow dress combo is so chic it’s insane.

Z is for…Zac Posen

Bringing an air of mid-century couture to the often pedestrian fashion proceedings, you can bet your money on Zac Posen dressing the most dramatic, and high fashion celebrity on the red carpet. Noteworthy moment – Christina Hendricks wearing the widest emerald green skirt you ever did see before whipping it off to reveal a fitted mermaid tail gown underneath. And our girl crush hit new heights.