#paul mcartney with a box

[avengersapology-vid]

Avengers during quarantine

steve: takes it like a champ, the 40s had absolutely no technology so he’s used to spending long periods of time doing nothing. takes advantage and watches all the movies and shows on his ever growing pop culture list, and upgrading his bike. is required to make infomercials. “remember folks; wash your hands, wear a mask, and social distance.”

tony: helps steve film his infomercials, and gets so pissy when steve doesn’t take his directions that he makes his own. “fine if you won’t do a full fireworks display, i will!” builds yet another array of suits (that aren’t murderous this time), and other completely tricked out gadgets and suits for the team. makes a city out of nats amazon boxes, and lives in it for 3 days before bruce accidentally hulks out and destroys it.

natasha: gets wine drunk and online shops. she’s the sole reason for the amount of amazon and other mail carrier boxes that start to pile up in the garage; you could build a miniature version of half of manhattan with them. buys masks in bulk, but they’re all different kinds. some are plain black, or regular medical grade. others are either weird cartoon mouths or super kawaii glittery sanrio type masks. the type of wine affects the type of mask she orders. bruce ends up hiding her mastercard.

bruce: he knows the severity of the pandemic, and is grateful for the stay at home orders. very big on cleaning constantly and wearing masks. he spends quarantine doing science experiments, and even tries to help find a cure or solution. almost hulks out when the home order is lifted prematurely, and he catches glimpses of the “bar lives matter” protests. spends time relaxing with natasha and tony. despite the obvious stress, its the most relaxed hes been in yrs.

clint: being the family man he is, obviously quarantines at home. he’s happy to have a prolonged break from the team, and more bonding time with his wife and kids. they play video games, make frog shaped bread, and he teaches his kids sign language. by the 4th month of quarantine they’re all almost completely communicating in sign. tony gets mad at him for not inviting him over to make frog bread.

thor: gets stuck at the avengers facility, and it is recommended that he stay on earth so as not to risk spreading to asgard. he sticks to playing fortnite and eating vast amounts of poptarts. he freaks out a little when his stash runs out and is the sole reason why the secret facilitys address gets leaked. makes friends with the grocery delivery person every time, and over tips.

loki: big time germaphobe!!! walks around with a mask and gloves at all times, probably showers several times a day. hoards lysol, wipes, and clorox, and only gives his stash to the others. although peter claims he saw him donating some to a women’s shelter. gets called out on a facebook mom group he was in (trying to keep track of stores with cleaning tings in stock) for hoarding. “sorry you refuse to get up at 5 am to shop jill. i am a god you dull creature, and i will not be bullied by a woman with a jersey duck nail!”

sam: baker affff, he shows up late to a meeting one day with a tray of cinnamon rolls and fury absolutely looses his mind. "HEHE I MADE CINNAMON ROLLS WITH A-" and nick is like "YOU’RE LATE! WE WERE SUPPOSED TO START 2 HOURS AGO! YOU CAN TAKE YOUR CINNAMON ROLLS AND SHOVE THEM RIGHT UP YOUR A-" "I PUT APPLES IN THEM" goes crazy spending most of his time in the kitchen. attempts to make thor poptarts.

bucky: he and steve are literally the kings of quarantine. bucky gets through the pop culture bucket list with steve, and actually tries to bond with his team mates. he falls into a rabbit hole of conspiracy videos (fully believes that paul mcartney died in the 60s, and if her brother didn’t kill her....then jon benet is definitely katy perry) and urban exploration videos and makes a list of places to explore when the stay at home order lifts.

peter: he goes absolutely crazy. he has to resume classes online, he feels stuck in his small room. eventually, may sends him upstate to the avengers facility where he has more freedom to roam around within a safe space. he can be found on facetime with MJ doing homework, or pranking the others with pietro and thor.

wanda: definitely spends time rereading popular series. i’m talking twilight, percy jackson, hunger games, vladimir tod etc. if you read it in middle school, it’s on her shelf. mostly orders through amazon, but as soon as the pandemic dies down a little shes at a book store stocking up. (side-note: shes team edward and definitely wants to be alice for halloween)

pietro: he rarely gets sick, but when he does it’s absolute hell! he panic buys toilet paper, lysol, and bath and body works sanitizers (specifically stress relief, noir, and warm vanilla sugar) he goes with loki to shop and speeds over to the tp and cleaning product aisle to shove things in his basket. he’s the sole reason why they start putting a limit on how much you can purchase. he doesn’t get sick at all, but definitely becomes a hypochondriac by month 2. he forms towers and statutes out of his massive collection of tp and sanitizers, and nick berates him and loki for hoarding.

vision: accesses different stan and fandom databases so he can carry a conversation with wanda about her interests. she's glad to be able to speak with someone other than peter and MJ about these things, cause she lowkey feels like she bothers them. he accidentally downloads a corrupt kpop file and can only speak in black pink and bts songs for a good two weeks till tony helps reboot his system.

nick: if you’re a covidiot, he knows. he has your name, ip, social security, list of allergies etc. and he’s not afraid to tell you he does. starts threatening people on social media under an anonymous account, and becomes very popular on twitter. his “stans” tell him to “dox” people but he doesn’t know what that means. not saying nick fury is anonymous but if the v for vendetta mask fits 👀

coulson: literally lives on tiktok, and becomes THE dad of tiktok. he dances, bakes, does “hey i’m proud of you kiddo” type povs, does tutorials on how to shave, change your oil/tire. he even helps a tiktok creator reclaim their sound from some pervy povs. refuses to tell nick what “dox” means.

[georgiahnd2photography]

Linda Mcartney Exhibition

Linda McCartney essay

We were given the opportunity to go and see Linda Mcartney’s exhibition in KelvinGrove museum last week. This exhibition was solely based on her photographs she had produced over many years. Their wasn’t a genre or specific group of images. Mcartney had taken images with multiple different types of equipment. She had typical digital images, black and white film, polaroids and even cyanotype images. It was very refreshing to see a photographers work that I had never seen before as I had personally never heard of her before going to the exhibition, Which I regret as her work is very unique and surreal. What i personally loved the most about Linda Mcartneys work is that mostly all of her photographs were not planned it was spontaneous and in the moment shots, which in my opinion gives her wok a lot more character. Her images became more personal when she married her husband Paul Mcartney in 1969, at this point she started shooting things mostly revolving on how her family were evolving and growing up. She also shot for her husbands band known as the Beetles. I believe that I also read that she didn’t want to spend too much time trying to learn how the whole camera works she just wanted to create and shoot. McCartney had only taken 2 lessons on photography by attending the night courses, although it was only two lessons McCartney got inspiration from the photographers she had seen work on and it inspired her to create the work she did. As I mentioned previously she was had produced images with cyanotype and other prints processes, this is because she has always been intrigued and fascinated by the history of photography.

Image 1,

Girl in a cafe, Copenhagen 1972

Black and white Bromide print

This photograph is explained mostly within the title and the image itself, but this image is a girl sitting by herself in a cafe, the rest of the image is dark but the surrounding area and the girl herself has been lit by the natural lighting coming inside the window. The composition and placement of the main subject is perfect as if she was slightly moved then she would have been in in the centre of the window light which would have made the photograph less effective. The composition is very unique as the objects that are in the foreground are almost creating a framing as they are not in focus therefore are not too distracting. As I mentioned before McCartney most of the time, when she sees something that strikes her interest she will just point and shoot, which is most likely what she has done in this image and there is no sort of planned moments within the composition. In the image there is only one other person in the shot which isn’t even that noticeable, which creates an isolated atmosphere within the image, giving the photograph a deeper meaning that when at first glance. The emotion on the women face conveys the mood of the image further.

Image 2,

Punter, London 1979

Black and white Bromide print

This image is of a boy standing at the door frame of a strip club, the boy is inside the shadows of the door frame which makes the image look daunting and intriguing. The picture looks as if it had been taken from the inside of a car. For this image there is a few things that stand out to me. First of all the car window that frames this boy and the location he is at perfectly. In the previous image McCartney also had an image that had a framing from a window so i’m not sure if this was maybe something she enjoyed doing or liked the look of. Another thing i liked about this image is the timing of it, the subject is clearly showing a look of satisfaction or embarrassment i cant figure out what one yet, but if it was a few seconds before she wouldn't have gotten the facial expression nor the composition as perfect as this. 

2nd Photographer

Diane Arbus

The kind and Queen of a senior citizens dance N.Y.C. 1970

Our year have been given the opportunity to go to Edinburgh this Monday to visit different exhibitions to see different peoples work. One photographers work that stood out to me was Diane Arbus. Her work was very inspiring and shown what this photographer was into, she enjoyed photographing the society for example more unique and inspiring people and that’s what made her photography special she gave an artistic approach to surreal lifestyles.

“Shown in robes and crowns, Arbus contrasts the elderly couple’s regal with their serious expressions. And everyday clothes. This photograph featured in a story for Esquire titles ‘The Last of Life’ According to the caption ‘Yet Grant, seventy-two and Charles Fahrer, seventy-nine, had never met before their names were picked from a hat . . .

They rained for the evening as king and queen of the ball.”

I love everything about the image from the moods and atmospheres to the story behind the image. This image wasn’t particularly planned and you can tell this as the facial expressions are not in sync, the women is slightly smiling yet the man has a more angry demeanour. Also how they have presents on their laps show that it was a moment that was spontaneously shot to capture a memory. I like the flash that is creating the harsh shadows on the wall behind and on some areas of the two subjects. It creates a more surreal atmosphere and makes the image slightly more grunge. Something about their expressions in this image show that they weren’t really celebrating the fact that they won the title of king and queen which creates a humorous tone underneath the somewhat serious image.

3rd photographer

Calvin Harris- Model

Paul Stuart

2015

One of the reasons I chose this image is because it’s a more contemporary piece, all of the images I have chosen so far have been on film and from the 1900’s. So I wanted to do analyse a piece of modern work also. This image was taken by a photographer named Paul Stuart whom is a documentary and portrait photographer. He studied documentary photography in the University of Wales, Newport and that’s where he got his first degree. Some of his inspiration for his portrait and documentary work consists of; Photographically, Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, Magnum, Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Paul Seawright.

Onto the image itself, I love studio portraits so that was another thing that magnetised me towards this image, I like how there isn’t much contrast between different colours as the model is wearing black and the background is black. The image consists of the subject sitting at a 45 degree angle with his hands on his thighs and he is looking straight on into the distance. The lighting source is coming from the side of his again therefore it mus be a side lighting or further back angle from the subject. The shadows are quite hard therefore potentially a barn door was used. Although the hands are lit also so it could have been a soft box so that the light was spread throughout from the top of the head to the knee area. The camera is far away therefore there is a lot of negative space especially above his head, also there is a lot of the body in shot also, it cuts of just above the knee and all the way up to his head is showing also. The facial expression that he is wearing almost shows that he is uncomfortable with taking images of himself or he isn’t taking it as serious as his mouth is slighting smiling. This gives a light hearted and humorous approach to this image even thought the backdrop and the clothing is suggesting a more dark demeanour to the photo.

The difference between my first exhibition of Linda McCartney at kelvin Grove and the national portrait gallery in Edinburgh is firstly the most obvious thing, the Edinburgh exhibition had multiple different photographers in the one area yet the kelvin grove exhibition was solely dedicated to McCartney herself. The other difference which slightly correlates to the first comparison is that Linda McCartney had at east 100 of her images on display yet Arbus herself had like 20 and the other photographers had around the same also.

[beracun]

Apa album terbaik The Beatles dan kenapa itu adalah ‘Rubber Soul’?

Pada suatu hari Minggu di bulan Desember, saat kepala penat karena ada urusan-urusan yang tmengganggu akhir pekan. Saya menyalakan mobil, memutuskan jalan-jalan sambil memutar album ‘Rubber Soul’ dari The Beatles. Pada saat track pertama ‘drive my car’ menemani saya di jalan tol yang lengang, ingatan saya berputar ke belakang saat perkenalan pertama saya pada album ini melalui ayah saya dan potongan-potongan momen lain bersama dengannya.

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Bila malam di mana saya mendengarkan Sally Cinnamon-nya The Stone Roses di radio membuat saya lebih ngulik “cutting edge music”. Maka perkenalan saya dengan The Beatles adalah yang penyebab mengapa saya tertarik dengan musik, secara keseluruhan.

Momen itu terjadi ketika saya kelas 3 SD, suatu malam ketika ayah saya pulang kantor, dengan sumringahnya ia mengajak saya mendengarkan satu kaset yang ia bawa pulang. Kaset itu berwarna hitam dengan label stiker BASF, tanpa cover dan box-case resmi. Kaset itu adalah kaset The Beatles, grup musik yang selalu ayah saya agung-agungkan dan bilang bahwa saya harus mendengarkannya. Lagu kesukaannya adalah ‘Michelle’, yang konon dibuat Paul Mcartney untuk meng-impress para gadis di pesta-pesta yang ia hadiri pada era sebelum The Beatles. Saya pun antusias mendengarkannya tapi ternyata semangat kanak-kanak saya saat itu membuat saya lebih suka dengan lagu berlirik “do what you want to do…” yang belakangan baru saya ketahui judulnya adalah ‘Think for Yourself’.

Bersamaan dengan itu juga saya baru sadar puluhan tahun kemudian bahwa kaset yang ayah saya bawa itu adalah album ‘Rubber Soul’. Ayah saya walau tidak bisa atau setidak-tidaknya saya tidak pernah lihat beliau memainkan alat musik, tapi ia adalah seorang music enthusiast, dalam artian sangat suka menikmati musik. Di akhir pekan selain karaokean di rumah, ia rutin mengajak saya ke Aquarius Mahakam dan dengan penuh semangat mendukung saya untuk belajar main gitar, untuk yang terakhir ini sayangnya tidak bisa saya wujudkan dengan sebagaimana mestinya.

Saya jadi bertanya-tanya dari mana ayah saya mengenal The Beatles pada masa mudanya? Album Rubber Soul sendiri rilis di tahun 1965, tahun yang sama saat Soekarno menetapkan deadline pengumpulan rekaman berbau ‘ngak-ngik-ngok’ ala The Beatles dkk pada negara, tahun yang juga penuh pergolakan di Indonesia. Kalau saya hitung-hitung pada saat itu mungkin umur ayah saya masih 16 tahun. Saya bayangkan ayah saya masih menjalani masa SMA-nya di Pangudi Luhur, yang entah dari mana mendapat informasi mengenai The Beatles, mungkin dari teman sekolahnya, mungkin dari media, tentunya yang saya yakini akses untuk mendapatkan musik mungkin tidak semudah sekarang. Mungkin ia mendapatkannya dengan penuh perjuangan, karena yang saya tahu ia bukan orang yang mudah tunduk pada nasib. Saya tahu ini dari cerita-ceritanya bagaimana ia menjalani hidup di masa mudanya dulu serta melihatnya langsung saat dirinya sudah mengalami komplikasi dari berbagai macam penyakit, ia tetap memilih untuk melanjutkan hidup dengan semangat yang kadang membahayakan kesehatannya sendiri, hingga akhirnya kami sekeluarga yang kocar-kacir untuk melarangnya.

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Kini giliran lagu ‘Nowhere Man’ yang berputar di audio mobil, mulut saya bersenandung perlahan, lagu ini selalu punya tempat khusus di hati saya, terutama pada saat-saat kepala sedang penat yang biasanya berujung pada rasa putus asa lalu bertanya hidup akan dibawa ke mana, yang kalau kata John Lennon sendiri tentang lagu ini sebagai lagu potret diri yang depresif. Di fase-fase seperti ini pula biasanya ayah saya menemani saya. Ada satu waktu di tahun 2009 saat saya sedang patah semangat, ayah saya mengajak saya ke luar kota berdua saja dengannya untuk makan-makan sambil sesekali memberikan nasehatnya dalam menjalani hidup, namun ada saatnya juga beliau memarahi saya di saat ia melihat saya mulai tidak terarah terutama dalam urusan-urusan kuliah.

Perjalanan makin jauh, saya mengarahkan kendaraan menuju Pondok Indah. Sembari lagu-lagu seperti ‘The Word’, ‘Girl’, ‘I’m looking through you’, terus berputar hingga pada lagu ‘In My Life’, saya makin terhenyak, teringat hari-hari terakhir Ayah saya di kamar rumah sakit, sebelum ayah saya harus masuk ke ruang ICU dan menghembuskan nafas terakhirnya. Pada pagi hari saat giliran saya menginap untuk menemaninya, saya sengaja memutar The Beatles dari handphone saya dengan mengeraskan loundspeaker-nya, dengan harapan mungkin band kesukaannya bisa menenangkan dirinya sambil menahan perihnya komplikasi penyakit yang ada di tubuhnya. Namun tidak ada respon yang gimana-gimana, walau masih sadar dan bisa diajak bicara, yang saya ingat ayah saya hanya menatap kosong ke langit-langit.

Memang Ayah saya bukan orang yang pandai menunjukkan perasaannya, seumur hidupnya, saya hanya dua kali melihatnya menangis, saat akan berpamitan untuk berangkat haji pada ibunya (nenek saya) dan pada saat terakhir pemakaman nenek saya, saat orang-orang mulai beranjak pergi. Kecintaan dan dedikasi pada ibu yang dicontohkan ayah saya adalah salah satu yang coba saya terapkan, terutama di hari-hari setelah ayah saya pergi, tentunya ini cuma salah satu di antara banyak inspirasi yang diberikan ayah saya, seperti halnya Rubber Soul yang memberi efek dan inspirasi luar biasa bagi The Beach Boys hingga Haruki Murakami.

Bersamaan dengan selesainya lagu ‘Run for your life’ yang merupakan track terakhir di album, saya akhirnya tiba di tempat tujuan. Masjid Pondok Indah, tempat ini enak untuk berkontemplasi sejenak sambil saya berpikir untuk mampir ke PIM sekadar window shopping. Sebelum keluar dari mobil saya mengirim pesan singkat ke ibu saya, minggu depan adalah tepat tahun keempat ayah saya berpulang, mungkin kami sekeluarga bisa mampir sejenak ke makam.