#she loves the bagpipes but plays several instruments

[beauty-grace-outer-space]

I just realized I'm straight up turning into my DnD character.

[whenitsdarkweilluminate]

Dublin 1981

Host: Ireland Participants: 20 Voting method: 12-point system (juries only)

Winner: Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up Country: United Kingdom Points: 136 (59.6% of highest score possible) Language: English

General Overview:

I consider 1981 to be a solid year. Yeah, there's one too many male ballads (probably because of Johnny Logan), but most of the entries are trying something interesting. Every year has some bland duds though.

The production is sufficient, aside from the scoreboard issues. The opening montage shows a variety of Irish culture – famous artifacts, stone forts, castles, doorknobs, and sports. Then it ends with this jagged globe map of Europe. The postcards also return this year, which begin with that same jagged map.

The interval act embraces Irish culture as well. It's a sequence of pre-recorded videos; beginning with a single dancer and some bagpipes by a misty stone fort. Then it cuts to a crowd of traditional dancers and musicians inside a castle room. And it finishes by mixing in modern guitars and drums.

I like the stage design. It consists of warm pastel colours and several circles, which creates an inviting and calm ambience. It's similar to Dublin 1971 stage. I don't have anything to say about the presenter, Doireann Ní Bhriain, though.

The vote reveal is a mess. Austria's spokesperson started listing their points in the running order instead of the new way. The scoreboard had to be corrected several times; like Ireland mistakenly having 326 points and Turkey randomly losing points. And connecting to Yugoslavia was difficult, leading to the iconic “I don't have it”. Despite all that, this was a very close contest. Five different countries held the lead at various points. And the UK / Germany / Switzerland were all tied at 120 points with 2 countries remaining. Ultimately, only 15 points separated the eventual top 4.

Germany loses by 4 points, and they take that as motivation to crush the competition next year. France, on the other hand, throws a tantrum over getting 3rd place and withdraw next year.

Otherwise, Cyprus debuts; which means this is the first instance of Greece giving 12 points to Cyprus! Yugoslavia also returns after 5 years. Israel is back too. And Italy is absent for the first time ever.

Austria: Marty Brem - Wenn du da bist Austria opens the show again. But the bizarre staging is more memorable than the song. The backing singer (whose voice is too quiet) wears a swimsuit and an American football helmet; while the other dancers have headphones on. They move in slow motion, lift their legs, freeze, and do the splits. The staging doesn't match the lyrics either; where Marty feels sad, lonely and lost when his lover is gone. The world just carries on normally. Musically, it's a boring, indistinct ballad. The melody is nonexistent and the instrumental is bland; aside from maybe the intro and chorus transitions.

Turkey: Modern Folk Üçlüsü & Ayşegül - Dönme Dolap The funky guitar and disco strings are cool. The drum/flute intro and the horn appearances are also highlights. And I initially like Ayşegül's solo, where she changes microphone stands. But the chorus feels more like a pre-chorus and the song goes nowhere. The stage presence looks stiff too. The lyrics compare life to a carousel. Both have their ups and downs, but friends stick by during the lows.

Germany: Lena Valaitis - Johnny Blue I love the storytelling lyrics, the tragic atmosphere, and how the song builds. It opens with a melancholic harmonica, which continues to play a big role. The bass and piano are highlights during the first half. Then the drums, strings, and backing vocals become more prominent to intensify the second half; until the post-bridge rests. The “blue... blue.. BLUE JOHNNY BLUE” refrain is super catchy too. “Johnny Blue” is a folk song about a blind man. When he was little, the other kids ostracized and bullied him for not seeing colours; hence his nickname. But music became his outlet and now he's famous, because his songs inspire others to escape life's darkness.

Luxembourg: Jean-Claude Pascal - C'est peut-être pas l'Amérique The 1961 winner returns with... another song that sounds like it's from 1961. This is a sleepy crooner ballad. The strings are dated. The melody is weak. And the lyrics are whatever. JCP explains why music is important to him. It's eternal too. But I don't get the point of saying “American [music] isn't everything”. Otherwise, the slowdown transitions, and the bass guitar + hi-hat parts are okay, but not impactful enough. There's also backing “ooh”s and a backing choir bridge.

Israel: Hakol Over Habibi - Halayla This is funky and disco, but with an Israeli sound. Shlomit's stage presence is great. The repetition of various phrases is catchy; particularly the “Ma shehaya, ma shehaya...” back-and-forth, the “laila laila la”s, and the “HALAYLA” shouts. And the backing vocals enter and exit at the right times. The song also grows in intensity, but it's too monotonous. It feels like one long chorus, aside from the Mediterranean intro/outro, which I do like. In the lyrics, this couple will say things tonight they've never said before, even if it feels like they have.

Denmark: Debbie Cameron & Tommy Seebach - Krøller eller ej The feelgood atmosphere, the energetic dancing, and Debbie's likeability are great. She stands centre stage while Tommy's on the keyboards. She briefly joins him too. But the song's structure is off. The first minute is hype, with the video game 'pew's, the overpowering disco instrumental, and the melody holding anticipation. The chorus is a decent release, but the post-chorus is too tense and long. The ensuing dance break is also great, with the horns and psychedelic guitar. But then the second verse sounds like an outro. The lyrics are about loving their children regardless of what they look like.

Yugoslavia: Seid Memić Vajta - Lejla Yugoslavia's return involves some unpleasant raspy vocals. Thankfully they have better entries coming up. The verses are a typical ballad. Then a swinging bass guitar appears, the orchestra pauses, and the chorus is breezy sleepy soft rock, with backing “nanana”s. The chorus is more bearable. In the lyrics, Seid says they would've been happy together had his ex stayed.

Finland: Riki Sorsa - Reggae OK This is definitely reggae, but I have a hard time taking it as a serious reggae song. It's also monotonous and never-ending. There's too many “Reggae... OK”s. The intense intro doesn't transition smoothly. Riki's voice is unpleasant. The gym class whistles are unnecessary. The accordion break is too long. And the goofy backing members are cringe. I'm indifferent on the clapping breakdown. The lyrics are about opening people's minds to a music genre they aren't used to it.

France: Jean Gabilou - Humanahum The end of France's most dominant period. “Humanahum” is very 'doom and gloom' and serious. The lyrics reflect Cold War dread, but they're still relevant today. It's set in the year 3000, where an old man recounts how wonderful Earth once was, before war exterminated all life. I like how the song builds in intensity: the strings get heavier, the drums shift gears, and the despair rises in Jean's voice. The chorus is also catchy and ominous, with the escalating “Humanahum”s and “Terre! Terre! Des Hommes!” The soft backing responses add an interesting contrast to the verses too. And the church organ intro is chilling.

Spain: Bacchelli - Y sólo tú The blandest entry of '81. It's too easy-listening for me. The “nada nada nada” and “whoa oh whoa” hooks are too light. It has a relaxing summer beach vibe though. The xylophone-y intro, hand drums, and whistling flutes are alright. But the heavy strings and trumpet crashes makes it sound old-fashioned. The lyrics are about a dreamy romantic date on the beach.

Netherlands: Linda Williams - Het is een wonder The obligatory circus music entry. The calliope plays a major role, right from the intro. The chorus is catchy, with the handclaps, and how it recedes at first, then the calliope and bouncy acoustic rhythm swoop in after. The verses also feature these sparkly whistles. The song has a warm, relaxed, and bright atmosphere, but it's kinda basic and lacks substance. In the lyrics, Linda remarks on the positive effect this person's love has had on her. She's become a new person.

Ireland: Sheeba - Horoscopes The message is such a 'first world problem' LOL, but it's a good one. Sheeba advises against relying on horoscopes (or “celestial lies”) for answers. Because it's “crazy” to surrender control of our lives. Instead, we decide our own destinies and success. One of the stanzas even lists all the star signs... except mine! (and Sagittarius). Regardless, the melody is super catchy: “DON'T LET THE PLANETS...” I like the slow intro with the violin. The song turns energetic after that. And the deep cellos are a highlight.

Norway: Finn Kalvik - Aldri i livet Norway is last place again with “nul points”. The vocals aren't the greatest. The first verse is quite bare and boring. And I dislike that scurrying instrument in the intro and chorus (alongside the tripping cymbals). The pre-chorus melody and strings are nice though. And Finn gives a personal performance. He plays the guitar on a stool. In the lyrics, he asks his lover to remember his promise that he'll never leave them.

United Kingdom: Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up (winner review below)

Portugal: Carlos Paião - Playback The juries didn't get Portugal's zany staging. The backing members are like marionettes. They squat during the intro bangs, they have funny microphone movements and leg extensions, and they turn their heads during the “AY PLAYBACK” hooks. They also wear separate colours. The numerous “playback”s are very catchy. The verses are dark, with a circling synth and Carlos sounding like a commander. Plus some addictive piano growls and violins surrounding the “AY PLAYBACK”s. The pre-chorus then feels anxious. And the sudden shift into the chorus is effective. It's a cynical song that calls someone out for deceptively using playback to cover up bad vocals.

Belgium: Emly Starr - Samson That “SAMSON!” *guitar* *horn* *bell* bit is so dramatic and addictive. Emly's arm movements really sell it. I also like the victorious Roman horns and drums in the intro, the funky verses, the pre-chorus “ooh”s, and the whispering bridge. It's a fun entry. On stage, there's historical robes, and two dancers waving giant feathers. The lyrics reference the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah, where Emly fancies this 'playboy' who won't commit. She wants to be his only girl.

Greece: Yiannis Dimitras - Feggari kalokerino This is a long and dramatic intro. There's cymbal crashes and digital ripples, as the camera shows a rose. Then the piano creates a compelling mood. The orchestra and vocals are very grand here. And Yiannis delivers an old school performance. But him staring at and sitting by the pianist is kinda creepy. The lyrics are poetic and romantic. The melody isn't that memorable, but the instrumental is intriguing.

Cyprus: Island - Monika Cyprus's debut is super wholesome, comforting, and uplifting. That saxophone cheers me up. And the “MONI MONI [...] MONIKA” chorus is certainly catchy. Nearly the entire song has the same melody and atmosphere, from the piano intro until the outro slows down. But it works. The overpowering harmonies and the key change win me over. The “ooh”s and “nanana”s are filler though. On stage, they sway a lot. The lyrics celebrate this couple's many years together and overcoming the hard times.

Switzerland: Peter, Sue and Marc - Io senza te The folk trio saved their best for last. Their 4th appearance is in Italian; effectively substituting for Italy's absence. The song has a bittersweet finality vibe. The late running order spot is perfect. The pan flute moments are nature-esque and give goosebumps. The verses are calm and reflective, where (Peter or Marc) pour their heart out through their raspy vocals. There's two thumps, then Sue's chorus is an anthem. In the lyrics, the couple have a beach walk conversation. They want to put the past behind and recapture what they had, because they don't know how to move on.

Sweden: Björn Skifs - Fångad i en dröm The Blue Swede guy returns, as Sweden selects another rock song. The restless stomping beat and the punching chorus hook have attitude! The chorus is also boosted by the guitar responses, the stops, and the whimsical instrument afterwards. The strings are a highlight in the verses too. And the slower pre-chorus breaks things up. The lyrics are about being trapped in a dream that doesn't provide your desired escape.

The Winner:

“Making Your Mind Up” is a turning point in Eurovision. The skirt removal gag was risqué for the time, although it's tame by today's standards. It signalled that staging matters in this contest. Fast forward to today, and yeah, the staging often plays an critical role in a song's placement. Does this mean gimmicks are now valued over talent? I don't know, it's a tired debate.

So the UK achieves their 4th victory, despite an off-key vocal performance from Cheryl. Apparently she was given the lead mic by mistake. The studio version is cleaner. Still, the song carries frantic energy from start to finish. It chugs along like a fast locomotive. The snare drum drives things, but my fave part is the guitar solo. There's also pauses upon the title phrase. Some clapping towards the end. And the instrumental (and the staging) are like dancing at a 1950s diner.

The song is fairly camp and catchy: “DON'T LET YOUR INDECISION...” is the best part. Lyrically, the narrator encourages the subject to tease and play games. But eventually, they'll have to decide on making this relationship official. There's some sexual innuendos (“speed it up; slow it down; turn it on; put it out”); leading to the “bending the rules” to “see some more” line. That line is when the skirt pull happens.

On stage, the 4 members wear separate colours. They shake their hips, jog on the spot, do 360 turns, put their hands on their heads (like going crazy), and do various arm movements. They also kinda squat during the chorus. Plus there's a dance break, where the ladies jump into the men's waists.

Verdict: “B” tier. Enjoyable enough but also kinda empty.

My points go to.... 01. Germany: Lena Valaitis - Johnny Blue 02. Portugal: Carlos Paião - Playback 03. Switzerland: Peter, Sue and Marc - Io senza te 04. Belgium: Emly Starr - Samson 05. Sweden: Björn Skifs - Fångad i en dröm 06. Denmark: Debbie Cameron & Tommy Seebach - Krøller eller ej 07. Ireland: Sheeba - Horoscopes 08. United Kingdom: Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up 09. France: Jean Gabilou - Humanahum 10. Cyprus: Island - Monika

11. Israel: Hakol Over Habibi - Halayla 12. Netherlands: Linda Williams - Het is een wonder 13. Greece: Yiannis Dimitras - Feggari kalokerino 14. Turkey: Modern Folk Üçlüsü & Ayşegül - Dönme Dolap 15. Norway: Finn Kalvik - Aldri i livet 16. Spain: Bacchelli - Y sólo tú 17. Luxembourg: Jean-Claude Pascal - C'est peut-être pas l'Amérique 18. Yugoslavia: Seid Memić Vajta - Lejla 19. Austria: Marty Brem - Wenn du da bist 20. Finland: Riki Sorsa - Reggae OK

[dotster001]

Congrats on 500! I'd love a matchup if they're still open. Obey me, romantic please!

I'm not quite sure how to do this as ive never requested something like this before but I shall try.

I am 5'3, very pale with lots of freckles. Thick, curly, auburn hair, not quite orange enough to be qualified as a ginger but enough that I have to be wary on international hit a ginger day 😔 My hairs just past shoulder length and pretty messy so I usually tie it back, except for my bangs which are somehow even more messy, I tend to just brush them aside.

I'm a Sagittarius, INFP. I have a cat despite being severely allergic to them. My cat is my favourite thing in the wkrld. Literally my best friend, I don't care if that makes me a loser. She's great. And fluffy. And adorable.

I'm pretty sarcastic, sometimes I get carried away, to the point that I'm mean. I've been trying to do better though. I have pretty bad anger issues, I used to punch holes in walls when I was 3-14. Haven't done it in a while but I still feel anger most of the time. It's just that instead of reacting with violence I react with a cold sort of malice. I still have those out bursts of burning rage where I shout and throw things, but my last one was like a year ago so I'm pretty happy with how far I've come!

I've got ADHD. Common hyper-fixations include animals of all kinds. Crime, torture methods, serial murder etc... I've unfortunately become pretty desensitized to the kind of stuff I learn.

Ive always been creative. I love to read and write. I currently own over 500 books and I've read most of them. Recently I've been trying to get into gaming. I've only ever played games on the Wii and DS before. I love Kirby, the only two games I've ever finished are Kirby ones. I've even watched the anime.

I write mostly fantasy stuff, with magic and dragons. Love dragons. When I was younger I taught myself draconic just because I could. I do tend to write things a bit darker, I love a tortured protagonist. My current WIP shows an assassin joining a normal guild to maintain their cover (as they didn't kill a guild member who saw them and need to keep an eye on them to make sure they don't snitch). Then with time the assassin finds themselves getting attached to the guild and it's members, especially the younger ones. But oh no, their identity gets out and everyone turns against them! The whole things very convoluted honestly. Lots of blood and violence. I find it cathartic.

I also like to draw and paint though I'm not great at either. I tend to like to collecting things. I'm currently collecting the vintage Fear Street books- I started reading them like years ago now but since the movies come out they're so much harder to come by. I've only 40 or so to go though! I was probably too young to read them, won't go into details but there were deaths and scenes of violence in those books that I had no business reading when I was six.

I also collect Pokemon cards, though I'm not buying them as often. I wanted to get all the Eeveelotions, but then they came out with Sylveon and I quit because honestly how dare they? I was only two away and they made a new one. And it wasn't even a dragon type :( My big claim to fame is that I have a number of first edition cards, which is super fun!

I love music so much. I listen to pretty much every genre. My biggest are metal, indie and punk rock. But I also really like musicals. Right now my top songs are probably Ride the Lightning, Fleur de Lis, Ophelia, I Can't Decide, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, the other side of Hollywood and Mr Loverman. I play the baritone/euphobium- think a small tuba. I also play the guitar and harmonica (self taught!). I'm looking into getting an otamatone. My dream instrument, though, is the bagpipes.

My favourite movie of all time is How To Train Your Dragon. SAW III is a close second. Idk why I like SAW III so much, it makes me so angry I literally shake just thinking of it. But I also find it hilarious for the same reason it infuriates me. The main character is horrible. I make a point of watching it with every friend i make. All the homies hate Jeff.

My favourite season is winter because I love wearing toques and sweaters, curling up in fuzzy blankets, snuggling with my cat. I love the snow and the way it sounds beneath boots. I tend to dress mainly in black and red. Ripped jeans, steel toed boogs. I've got a ring in the shape of a snake and another with a bunch of eyes carved in it. I have a padlock necklace with an accompanying skeleton key necklace because I like things to fit together, y'know? I have a fairly eclectic earring collection. My favourite pair is a silver set made to look like meat cleavers.

So sorry for rambling, I have no idea what to say and ended up saying way too much but whatever. Thanks a bunch and congrats again! Go drink some water if you haven't in a while!

❄️☃️ anon

(Yo I feel your pain on the red head thing 😂 I'm strawberry blonde, and some people will fight to the death to say I'm a redhead. Stay safe out there 😂 Also, my cat's my best friend, so we can be losers together)

I match you with Lucifer.

To be totally honest, I could see you with every brother, and Barbs. But in the end, I feel like Lucifer just shone through. Especially when it comes to sarcasm. He can slice and dice someone in three words, so he'll give you a run for your money.

He loves how many instruments you know how to play, and may or may not be looking into finding the best bagpipes teacher to ever exist, so that you can both learn how to play together. Will make the other brothers play instruments as well so that you can all put on a concert for Diavolo.

He has all the ins and outs of everything, so he can help you build your collections. He makes it look like an illegal drug deal sometimes, and he's willing to pay waaaaay too much money for you to feel safe about your financial future, but he gets everything for you. Don't give up on your Eeveelution collection yet. He's got a lead.

He'll watch SAW III with you. He doesn't really understand why you continue to watch it if you hate Jeff so much, but it makes him feel soft inside to watch something you enjoy so much with you.

He birthed Satan from his wrath. He understands anger. If you get overly angry, he understands and will help you figure things out, calm down, or slice a bitch. He's flexible.

You'd gotten dressed to go out for the day, in your black ripped jeans and boots, a red blouse Lucifer had gotten for you, and that new pair of dragon earrings he'd also gotten for you. After finishing getting dressed, you headed to his office.

You knew he was the avatar of pride, but sometimes it was easy to forget until you saw him practically preening like this. He stood up from his desk, and took your hand, just staring at you for a moment.

"What is it, Luci? Is my beauty leaving you speechless?" You said with a playful eye roll.

He gave a booming laugh, before he drew you closer, and whispered, "Have you ever noticed how you tend to prefer my colors?"

"Huh, I guess I didn't," you said. "Anyway, where are we going today?"

He smiled, and again, his pride was staggering.

"We are going to practice your draconic, my love," he said, collecting a couple things and starting to leave the room.

"Wait, so that means..."

"Yes," he smiled. "I'm going to introduce you to my pet dragon."

[darkmatters-ghost]

I don't know why I feel the need to share this, maybe it's because it's been on my mind and it's 2:41 am and it's currently the "time is sludge... Again" part of the insomniac experience, but I want to talk about this. (This talks about my experience with happy stimming under the cut)

It was several years ago when I saw this comic of someone's happy stimming. She, like, waves her arms around and builds up this lovely yellow hue, and it's sparkly and then she expels all of it as at once and- it's truly a wonderful comic. I don't know where it is now. But it really captures the right feeling. And it was so cool... But I was kind of... I feel bad using strong words like "mortified" but that's the best way to say it.

Because Stimming was one of the many, MANY things I have in common with our lovely autistic community. And we're entering a world where people are starting to be able to be who we are and act how we feel, and I knew from the moment I saw it, that something was wrong. I didn't have a happy stim.

Most people who stim are forced to stop because humans are so bad at appreciating the abnormal, and that never happened to me. I'm lucky! But I didn't have a happy stim. And I knew I was supposed to. I immediately knew that. Knew it about me, me as a person. I knew it. There was a hole in me that was taken and I didn't know why! And it was terrifying.

And I kept thinking, And and I kept digging.

I knew about physical stims. With your hands and your feet and your hair. Most of my stims were those. I'd bounce my leg under a table, I tap the pads of my fingers together with my thumb if I was a specific kind of anxious, I move the bones in my wrists back to where they're supposed to be to try and fix things instinctually.

All of those were to get less anxious though. And my mother was always so open to things like that. So willing to learn about every diagnosis and piece of information that needed researching.

I knew about vocal stims. While most people were forced to stop for more crummy society reasons, that wasn't the case for me. I just... Didn't have any? I enjoy talking, I enjoy singing but they weren't... That comic. They didn't have the yellow feel-good-ness. They didn't have The thing.

I like swinging on swingsets. The momentum is nice. I think that counts as a stim but I usually did it to help, wouldn't-cha know it, anxiety. Help me sleep at night. It wasn't the thing.

In my house, you didn't listen to songs on repeat. My mother would lose it. You didn't loop songs in the car, it'd drive her batty. She'd probably have a panic attack. So I never thought of it as a thing? It didn't occur to me. When I got my own pair of headphones, I wouldn't drive her crazy by listening to anything on loop, I could go forever if I wanted. But I didn't. It wasn't a thing and I was apprehensive about it, that's not a thing we do. Don't to it. Even when my mind got loud about playing things on loop, I tried not to let it overcome me. That's not a thing. People don't do that. And I'd long since settled with the dismal answer of never knowing what the stim was. I hadn't even thought of checking because sounds like asmr hurt like sandpaper on my brain.

But recently, I don't know, something changed? I reeeally needed to hear this song again. So I went to the instrumental. And it was great there. I went to the vocal only, it was just the goodest sound. I went to covers and back and eventually I just let it play. I really let it smoosh into my head and memorized the instruments and felt them. It was like following a groove in a table by tracing your finger across it. It was just. The thing. I actually lost sleep because I was enjoying myself so much. I was so happy!

I talked with my mother about it. "I dunno, I really really wanted to hear that song over and over? it has a BAGPIPE in the second verse! Who wouldn't want to hear that!?"

"yeah, I could never do that. I guess my misophonia is too strong for that."

It was so eye opening. Misophonia. It was her misophonia, she'd never used that word before. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Listening to this song on loop isn't bad, it's just a me thing.

And that's when I realized that I'd found the thing. I'd finally found my happy stim. I've decided to not cry about it, but this was such wonderful news. It's needlessly specific, and I don't know why my kid mind had labed "no looping" as Gospel? I mean there's a button for it and everything. But it's my thing.

I may never have some visible stim that people will see but I have my thing and I'm so beyond society possibly judging me.

I am on ADD meds, have overstimulation issues, anxiety, truly frightening physical disabilities I fight all beneath the surface. And I play the songs that have the thing about them on loop for five hours at a time. And I think I love me for it.

Whoever you are, you're you. You're more you than anyone else. That is something beautiful. You like Fanfic, go for it! You like art? Go for it! You like flapping your hands? Go for it! You like judging Disney for its questionable decisions as of late? Try not to kill them too much. They only mostly deserve it.

Being you is a gift that you should cherish, and reward yourself by being you. Not someone else.

For those that read this whole thing, the song in question is I've Had Enough of You from Billie Bust Up, a video game musical that's currently in development. Listen to all the stuff that's out so far, every song I've heard knocks it out of the park. Listen to it on loop if you want! I think we've established that listening to songs on loop does not, in fact, summon Satan.

Happy Stimming! (why does that sound like a holiday now?)

[audio-luddite]

180 grams of nice music.

Loreena McKennitt is a nice person one of those ethereal voices who spends time in the new age folk easy listening world. I was surprised to find she was born in Manitoba (like me!). Her interest is Celtic music and culture. Specifically Irish, but the Celts got around. My mum was of Scottish decent (Celtic) and from an era that if you wanted music you made it yourself. She player guitar, fiddle, banjo and piano if not well, enthusiastically. I heard a lot of reels and aires as a kid. It may be some deep genetic thing that makes me like bagpipes. So I am programmed to like this stuff.

I had heard of Ms Mckennitt, but nothing specific, and had none of her music. I recall a song about mummers was popular a few years ago.

I was at a real brick and mortar record shop. To be honest they also sell DVD, Bluray, CDs Tee shirts and such. But there is a decent rack of LPs in the front. The selection is interesting. Lots of stuff even I consider old like Frank Sinatra. A good amount of Jazz and even pop music all on new LPs.

I flipped through several yards of LP stacks. Just doing that made me feel nostalgic. I pulled some to the front in case I would buy it. Decide at the end. One was an album called "Lost souls." Issued in 2018 and this was 180 grams. That is good. People who bother with heavy vinyl are careful doing it. I for some mysterious reason bought it.

I played it last night. The jacket was standard, but the disk was in a proper sleeve not just cheap paper. There was a booklet of several pages with the lyrics and personnel just like the old days. The surface was quiet in fact I was not sure it had started and turned up the volume a bit too far.

The sound is excellent. Broad and clear with several musical guests arrayed across my living room wall and fireplace. Clear soprano voice. Not perfect there were a couple of off bits, but just more human. The instruments were crystal clear. You have to hear a Spanish guitar on a good system to appreciate it's dynamic. I like folk style percussion. It has a timbre and intimacy, not just thumping. Lots of nice detail.

So this may be one of those rare "test" quality albums with music I like. It was my first pass over it. My wife was away, so I did not have to be quiet. My next pass may be with headphones.

Some songs were very Irish or Scottish, one was Spanish / Arab. Galicia Spain was a Celtic enclave, also Arab and a few other contributors to the culture. The album was of songs written at other times, but never included on previous albums. She just gathered them up and put them here. Two were songs written to poems by Keats and W.B. Yeats. It was a lovely blending of cultures on many levels.

So an enjoyable session, which is why we have all this gear.

[ask-megamind-blue-defender]

Hi! I was wondering, have you ever heard of the band Skillet? It's a Christian rock band but they've also got some softer songs there too. I think you'd like them a lot. If you want to listen to them, I highly recommend that you start with their "Awake" album. (Beware of the song "Lucy". It's the ninth track, I think)

Ollo!

Stunning super-genius though I am, I’m afraid I have not cataloged all modern rock bands, and I'm unfamiliar with that one. Rest assured, however, I like discovering new music, so I shall try Skillet out. (It’s an interesting name, by the way.  Chef Minion would approve!)

Being the Incredibly Handsome Dark Defender of Metrocity, I still enjoy a lot of classic metal, such as AC/DC, Guns n' Roses, Iron Maiden, and RUSH. Nothing else prompts my amazing intellect to function faster! Then, of course, there are some more modern Epic/Symphonic Metal bands like Nightwish and Elvenking.

I also listen to a selection of classic pop, including Michael Jackson and George Thorogood and The Destroyers, but Minion says I'm entirely too picky about it. Beyond that, I tend to like music that shows a defiant uniqueness.  (I may be a hero now, but I still have a soft spot for musicians willing to take risks, push boundaries, and break rules!)  These include several like Uli Jon Roth, who plays Classical pieces on electric guitar, Lindsey Stirling, who plays dubstep violin, 2Cellos who play rock tunes on (as you might imagine) cellos, The Snake Charmer, who blends Celtic bagpipes with Punjabi percussion and modern sounds, and finally The Hu, who play oldies-style rock on traditional Chinese instruments.

Finally, Roxanne has introduced me to some softer music that I actually like. She listens to a lot of Enya, 2002, and Gary Stadler when she's writing a new segment for work. However, I will admit, I very likely only like those albums because they remind me so much of the woman I love. Otherwise I'd likely find them too... gentle. I work long hours both in the Lair, inventing my next Heroic Devices, and on the streets, keeping people so safe, so I need music that keeps me awake! The strongest coffee only does so much, even when I add pure, conscentrated caffeine to it!

Again, I shall give Skillet a... what is the term? A fair shake?  (And I shall take due caution concerning Lucy.)  I may decide to add it to my collection of favorites! Thank you for the suggestion. I hope you'll rock out (or relax, as the case may be) to a few of the options I've listed above as well.

~Megamind, Defender of Metrocity

[theoriginalladya]

Would love to hear more on Lachlan! ❤

from this meme

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!  My sort of Scottish boy!!!!!  Grab a seat, m’dear, I’ve got lots to say about him! :D

Okay, so ...  Lachlan MacRae Shepard (and his younger brother, Iain Sinclair Shepard) was born on Mindoir.  Mum (Fiona) is a MacRae from Scotland (and post-war he and Kaidan end up near Eilean Donan castle, the ancient seat of the MacRae family, for a while) and Dad (Benjamin) is tolerant of her red-headed Scottish ways. ;)  Dad is former Alliance, too.

Lachlan and his brother are turned onto music - and I don’t just mean the kind you listen to on your omni-tool! - at a very young age.  Lachlan plays several instruments, including violin, but he is best and (and much prefers) cello.  His brother also plays several instruments, but sticks with violin.  They both also know well how to play the bagpipes, as does Fiona, tyvm.  (who do you think taught them???)  She has her father’s pipes, brought with her when she and Benjamin moved to Mindoir, and she’ll pull them out on special occasions for Lachlan and/or Iain to play - which is rare, mind, so anytime they come out, both boys scramble around madly to get a chance to play! lol

Now, about the time Lachlan is fifteen (about a year older than the standard game Shepard) and Iain twelve, Benjamin hires Kaidan Alenko on as help around the farm.  Over the next year and a half or so, Kaidan essentially becomes part of the family, helping out but also getting to know them well. At one point, Lachlan goes off to play with the United Colonial Symphonic Orchestra - it’s members representing all of the Alliance colonies around the galaxy.  In fact, Lachlan is with them on tour when Mindoir is attacked.  Kaidan helps Iain survive, and the two of them head back to his family’s place at the orchard in BC.  Poor Lachlan hears about the attack and while the orchestra tries to watch out for him as best they can once he finds out, he slips away for a couple of days and disappears.  He later has no memory of that time until he walks back into the hotel to be met by the orchestra members and an Alliance officer who then takes him to Earth to be reunited with his brother and Kaidan.

Now, I’ve got tons more to say about him, but you’ll need another ask or three to drag that out! lol  (I really hate making these things too long)

[citizenaycock]

Cold War (2018) | Directed and Written by Pawel Pawlikowski

Before getting into Cold War, as a prelude, I’d like to mention a funny documentary the filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski released back in 1991 called Dostoevsky’s Travels. It follows the great-grandson of the famous Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky who died in 1881.  Fyodor is generally known as one of the greatest writers of all-time and possibly one of the first modern psychologists, deeply probing the human soul in his work.  Great-grandson Dmitri drives a tram in Leningrad, Russia and agrees to go on a speaking tour about his “prophet” Grandfather.  He doesn’t do this to pay his respects, but only because he dreams of scraping together enough money to buy a used Mercedes to impress his friends.  And he is OBSESSED with buying a Mercedes and knows nothing about his Great-Grandfather. He talks to crowds of intellectuals and hardly has anything to say about his kin Fyodor and just wants to get paid. He buys one Mercedes and it breaks down immediately. He then buys another at the end of the documentary and it gets stolen by bandits. As the doc progresses you see Dmitri is a bit of a numb-skull and a scoundrel. I liked it due to the irony of Dmitiri’s complete uncaring attitude towards Fyodor’s highly regarded esteem, and obviously this absurd infatuation with acquiring a used car as a status symbol compared to his novelist grandfather, who is held up so highly for his spiritual profundity and depth.     It’s a great piece of work no one has heard of...part-cautionary Capitalist tale at the end of the Soviet Union, while Cold War is part-cautionary Communist tale post World War II.  

Official Trailer for Cold War

Intro and Technical Specs

To start, my main fear of writing about films I love is that it will suck the joy out of the film itself by looking at it so closely.  I have only written in depth about two films, and thus far, am finding it to be the opposite.  When going under the microscope, I am just becoming more aware how great a truly well-made film is when breaking it down.  

Cold War may be the most beautiful black-and-white film I’ve seen.  The category Amazon has placed it in is “Arthouse Drama”.  Amazon Studios also is the distributor of the film.  My guess is because it did very well at the Cannes Film Festival and Pawlikowski won the Oscar for his previous film Ida in 2013. Sometimes they get it right.   To give some more context, I am very familiar with Ida and studied it for research for making my latest short film.  I found it interesting Pawlikowski implemented a particular style similar to filmmaker Paul Schraeder’s book, “Transcendental Style in Film”.  One aspect of this style pertaining to Ida is the cinematic framing for the action and not moving the camera until the end.  He framed his subjects in a squared 4:3 aspect ratio while leaving lots of headroom, sometimes leaving them in the bottom corner of the frame, which carried over to Cold War.  I don’t exactly know why he does this, but I have some theories that I will flesh out within the post in depth.  While watching, I immediately noticed the grain in the 4K version.  I looked it up and the film was shot with an Alexa digital camera and also a 35mm film camera, so apparently they were able to mimic film grain with the Alexa in post to match.  A 32mm lenses was used for almost all the shots. According to Pawlikowski it was because this focal length closely mimics the viewing width of the human eye and allows a wide space of action that can fit around the subject(s) in the frame. Similar to Ida, there is no non-diegetic music in the film (music added outside of the film’s music itself) until the closing credits, reminiscent of the French director Bresson.  

Opening in Rural Poland

The film opens on the hands of a man playing an instrument that resembles bagpipes, looks handmade and I assume is indigenous to Poland. The camera tilts up to reveal a bright-eyed rural man, and eventually pans over to another interesting looking character playing a violin as they sing together.  We soon learn that Wiktor (one of the protagonists) is traveling with two others (Irena and Kaczmarek) and they are recording various forms of folk music unique to the Polish people.  Kaczmarek immediately degrades this type of music as “possibly crude” or “too primitive” immediately marking a divide in perspective compared to Irena and Wiktor, who visibly enjoy interacting and recording the villagers’ authentic music.  

They soon come to a house where a unique-looking dirty village girl sings a song not accompanied by any instruments.  She has deep-set eyes and looks slightly haunted, and the lyrics of the song are about unrequited love. Not a happy song. Wiktor and Irena are enraptured by the raw singing and are recording this. In contrast, Kaczmarek disinterestedly eats soup in the next room, spoon klanking against the bowl, probably interfering with the recording.  Kaczmarek is representative of the Communist State for this film, high on bureaucracy and lacking in soul. The song being sung by the little girl is a huge part of the film as a whole.  Little do we know (and probably not evident to most who have seen the film) the lyrics tell the story of what happens between the protagonists we are about to follow in the film. The song is called Dwa Serduszka (Two Hearts) and is an authentic Polish folk song like much of the music in the movie.  After watching for the first time (I commonly do this) I went online to look up background information and found a very well-made youtube video essay describing the song as being the “Leitmotif” for the film. Leitmotif is a term defined as “a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation”.  In this case, the song operates as a direct pointing of what is to happen.  The song pops up several times throughout the course of the film, forecasting the fates of the two protagonist lovers, Wiktor and Zula, who are brought together by music.

This “forecasting” I believe goes deeper.  It’s as if it is pre-determined. Pre-determined due to the current political environment in Poland and the two characters’ difference in personality and upbringing.  Also, most importantly, is because they love each other in a way that seems beyond their control and not a choice, eventually becoming impossible for them to live life without one another. The leitmotif reminds us throughout the film of Wiktor and Zula’s inability to escape their fate, which is already etched in stone by powers beyond their will:    Two hearts four eyes Crying all day and night long Dark eyes, you cry because you can't be together You can't be together My mother told me You mustn't fall in love with this boy    But I went for him anyway and love him until the end I will love him until the end  

Folk Ensemble

Now we are at a large building which looks to still be in the rural area.  Auditions are going to be held here for singers and dancers for a folk ensemble performance.  A couple of trucks haul the commoners in and Kaczmarek gives a stately speech to the bunch before cutting inside to everyone waiting to audition for Wiktor and Irena.

We then meet Zula waiting.  She elects to audition with another girl, naively, rather than shine in the audition solo. They enter the room to sing for Wiktor and Irena.  Wiktor is immediately transfixed and asks Zula to hold on and asks her to sing another song alone.  She sings with an authentic, untrained beauty.  We also see her feistiness here.  It’s obvious Wiktor is smitten and she is marked down to be selected as one of the singers after they exchange a parting look.  By now, the framing style of the cinematography is noticeably unique compared to other films.  As mentioned in the intro, characters are often framed with lots of headroom and sometimes placed in the bottom of the frame, leaving it mostly open space.  My theory on this is that the environment the characters inhabit are shaping their destiny more than the characters’ own free will, therefore their heads are often seen at the bottom with action on top and around them. For example, Communism looms larger than the individual, tamping he or she down (literally) to the bottom of the frame.  Not only Communism, but their uncontrollable love for one another, the characters’ upbringing and the people around them with their general wants and needs. These factors shape their present and future more than their own willful, self-determination and I think the filmmaker is aware of this fatalism, yet doesn’t just come and say it because that wouldn’t be interesting.  We just see that Wiktor and Zula are never able to comfortably settle anywhere with their love nor escape the love they feel for one another, making their situation impossible due to the circumstances.        In Ida, duty to God looms large and so does the characters’ Jewish unknown family past (to only name two) and the shots are framed accordingly as well.   On a broad level stepping outside of the film, what’s interesting to me is how much free will do humans actually have and how much is self-determinant?  After studying the film closely, this is the deep question (not answer) that I came to that transcends the surface story.  

Wiktor watches Zula from a distance outside that evening.  Irena then tells him Zula killed her father and did some prison time for it.  After rewatching, I suspect that Irena loves Wiktor, and there are a few subtle cues later on that I noticed as well.  During private lessons, Wiktor curiously asks Zula what happened between her and her father while Wiktor plays scales on the piano and she matches the notes with her voice.  Zula says her father tried to be sexual with her so she stabbed him.  It is a very matter-of-fact and short answer.  Wiktor doesn’t say anything and continues playing the piano.   I’ve thought about this scene more so than any other scene after rewatching.  I think it is because of the dialectical nature of Zula saying she stabbed here Dad because he tried to have sex with her, one of the darkest things you could imagine, then the slight humor of Wiktor’s reaction while seamlessly transitioning back to the softness of the piano and her soft voice syncing.   Wiktor is very watchful, internal, reserved, most likely from a more refined family and musical background.  Zula is tough, spirited, tenacious and has lit a fire in Wiktor.  Wiktor is tall and dark-haired.  Zula is short and blonde. Opposites!

It is now time to perform for a large audience in a theatre.  Wiktor conducts. Zula and about 20 other girls in Polish folk attire sing the leitmotif song that was sung by the young girl earlier.  The group sings beautifully.  Zula shines in front.  Even Kaczmarek on the side of the stage behind the curtain seems to be in awe and carefully walks about as if not to disturb the magic.

Afterwards there is a reception.  Wiktor and Irena lean against a large mirrored wall and everyone else in the room is seen in the reflection. When you first watch it, it takes awhile to figure out the orientation of the room due to the mirrored wall.  I think this is the most interesting shot of the film.  Kaczmarek then gleefully enters frame and says that the performance was so beautiful, calls Wiktor a genius and says it’s the most beautiful day of his life.  He really means it and is the most authentic emotion we see from him in the whole film.  Previously, Kaczmarek thought all this “folksy stuff” was foolish.  There is a funny moment between the three.  Wiktor and Irena are obviously moved by this but not sure how to express it as the stately Kaczmarek leans against the mirror with the two.   On a second viewing, one sees Zula in the reflection staring at Wiktor the entire time.  The two make love soon after in a bathroom at the party.

The Ensemble + The State

The performance is so good, now the State wants to get involved and meets with Wiktor, Irena and Kaczmarek.  The government wants to turn the repertoire into a “calling card for our Fatherland” and incorporate “Land Reform”, “World Peace” and a strong number about the “Leader of the World Proletariat”.  In return the group will be held in high favor, able to travel to other countries to perform, etc.  Irena and Wiktor are visibly uncomfortable with this.  Irena speaks first and says thank you but the ensemble is about authentic folk art and the rural population doesn’t sing nor understand these difficult issues.  Kaczmarek quickly intervenes and calls the man from the state “comrade” and says the ensemble, on the contrary, will do this after given proper direction. Irena stares him down.  Wiktor says nothing.  The next performance is stained by a huge tapestry of Stalin behind the singing ensemble.  The tone now is more dutiful rather than soulful, as if singing a church hymn they are forced to sing.  Zula’s face while singing now lacks the life it possessed in the performance before.  The State must extinguish all individuality and uniqueness with the goal to homogenize.  Irena’s heart looks broken in the audience.  Everyone dutifully rises for applause afterwards and Irena walks out.  We do not see her again in the film.  Everything has changed.

The stuffiness of the singing troops is saved afterwards by a beautiful shot of Wiktor and Zula laying in a golden wheat field together at dusk. Golden?? The film is in black and white but my mind says “golden”.  Birds and crickets sing. Tranquility away from the group.

But it doesn’t last long, as they are unable to run from the larger outside factors.  Zula soon confesses that she reports on Wiktor to Kaczmarek about their relationship and the things he tells her. She says it’s because she’s on probation for something and assures Wiktor that it’s nothing that will hurt him, but Wiktor gets up and walks off angrily at a loss for words.      As mentioned, the scene starts with their eyes closed as if in a dream, beyond the State, but it's inevitable that the state has to enter their relationship at some point, infecting the dream, and will remain a problem for the rest of their lives.   Zula calls him a “bourgeois wanker” as he walks away and she reacts oddly by jumping in a nearby river.  As soon as she hits the water, Wiktor stops and turns around.  She floats in the river and begins singing the leitmotif song.  

The next shot is of the two silently sitting together again in the wheat field at nightfall with a campfire going.  Zula’s hair is wet. The two just stare at each other and never say a word. What are they thinking?   I think Wiktor is thinking that he can not escape her because of his love and that they are stuck!  Zula knows this too.  This is a type of love that transcends choice.  Just like the State, their love controls them. The silent shot in nature cuts to black, then diverges to a busy train station with a brass band as the ensemble leaves to go to Berlin for a show.  Kaczmarek gives a stately speech to the group about their trip.  Wiktor meets Zula privately in a train car and lays out a plan for their escape once in Germany to go to France.  Zula is nervous she will not be able to make it somewhere other than her homeland Poland due to her inability to speak French and lack of experience.  I doubt she has any family to rely on, and at the moment has the ensemble in Poland as a decent occupation.  Wiktor assures her she has talent to learn and the most important thing is they’ll be together. They kiss.   The performance in Berlin is shot very uniform and proper, perhaps further pointing to its newfound soulless rigidity.  Afterwards, Wiktor goes to the meeting place to cross the border.  Zula remains at the reception with the comrades and Kaczmarek (as if in a trance) and never shows.  Wiktor waits until nightfall and eventually stiffly walks across without her.  

Defection

Wiktor is now playing piano in a cool jazz night club in Paris with a band.  It is 1954.  His beard is now grown out a bit and his hair messier than before.  He is now in an empty cafe at closing time and speaks French with the waitress. He seems to have assimilated well here.  It is revealed he is waiting for someone. That someone is Zula.  She eventually walks in and they stare at one another for a few moments.   One look at Wiktor while sitting across from her shows how much he still loves her and has missed her. The actor playing Wiktor, Tomasz Kot, really shows this wonderfully. He is very good at being still yet showing so much.  Regarding the performances, this is one of the most authentic love films I’ve seen in a long time.  And an expert director and writer doesn’t hurt.  The film never feels sappy, in my opinion, while simultaneously remaining very romantic.   Zula doesn’t show much and stays cold during this scene, but can’t help but ask, “Are you with someone?”  Wiktor is.  So is she.  He asks if she’s happy.  She isn’t, but doesn’t say it.  Wiktor knows and walks her to the hotel.  She says she wasn’t good enough, not as good as him, to make the escape from Poland to Paris.  Wiktor says he believes love is enough.   Zula coldly kisses his cheek and then stolidly walks away.  Wiktor watches her go.  But eventually Zula breaks! She turns back around, walks quickly back and they kiss passionately for a few moments before she leaves again.      If one just read this and didn’t watch the film, you might think it seems like any other love story you’ve seen a million times. But to me, because of the authenticity of the performances and lack of constant soundtrack music, it really felt great to see these two embrace again. And I think it proves that moments in movies that may look cliche on paper can be pulled off with a skilled filmmaker and actors.  Also, there’s only a few angles that the camera covers in this scene and ALL the scenes really!  There’s a graceful economy and no superfluous closeups with unnecessary dialogue.  And as mentioned, no outside music booms in like most films commanding you to feel something! You feel it because you feel it, not because you’re told to feel it with an over-bearing soundtrack trying to compensate for lack of performance or direction. Wiktor now walks into his apartment, smokes a cigarette alone deep in thought, then gets in bed with his girlfriend.  He tells her he’s just been with the woman of his dreams.  She doesn’t seem to care and turns around to go to sleep, highlighting the lax and blase nature of their relationship and possibly Paris artist life as a whole.  Wiktor then turns off the lamp and looks up at the ceiling in lovestruck thought.

We are now in Yugoslavia in 1955, which looks much more lush than I would’ve imagined Yugoslavia.  Wiktor gets off the train to attend a performance of the ensemble.  Kaczmarek quickly greets him at the front of the theatre and is oddly cordial and confident in a sharp suit.   Once inside, Zula sees Wiktor in the audience and looks startled.   Wiktor looks side to side and men are watching him from the aisles.  He is escorted away by authorities yet remains adamant to see Zula rather than be afraid of being thrown in jail or hurt.  The first time I watched I thought he was definitely going to be thrown in prison. Kaczmarek obviously ordered the men to take him away and send him home in a train before he could see Zula, because of Kaczmarek’s interest in Zula.

Zula and the ensemble are shown singing the leitmotif song now.  Zula notices Wiktor is no longer in his seat.  Perhaps he was escorted out at the intermission.  She sings with a melancholic intensity.  The black-and-white contrast is especially beautiful here, maybe more so than anywhere else in the film.  There is a black back drop and all of the singers’ alabaster skin glows, as well as their folk costumes.  

Wiktor is back in Paris now and has gotten work as a Film Composer.  Two years has passed since the Yugoslavia concert.  While in the middle of working on the soundtrack, the side door of the sound stage opens. Wiktor is spellbound as a smiling Zula is revealed.  

Zula has married an Italian so she could legally move to France.  She says the marriage doesn’t count though because it wasn’t in a church. Neither seem worried about it.  This time Zula does not hold back her feelings and, obviously, neither does Wiktor. They make love.   They ride on a boat down the Seine at night past the buildings and cathedrals. They messily and drunkenly dance alone at a night club in rapture. Heaven for a moment.   

Which begins Zula’s vast transition from the performing rural ensemble in Communist Poland to a solo singer at the Paris jazz club with Wiktor’s band.    She sings the emblematic Dwa Serduszka most wonderfully here. Order.  Everything in it’s right place. She is luminous as the camera slowly dollies around her, eventually revealing a packed club.  Everyone is captivated and still.  Then at the end is a lovely moment, maybe my favorite moment of the film, where Wiktor is staring at her intensely and she turns to check in with him and he gives her a nod of approval.  It’s almost corny, riding the edge, but is powerful, conveying a silent understanding between the two seeing one another perfectly clearly.

Poles to Parisians

We now are at where Wiktor and Zula live, which looks like a cool version of a converted attic with a Paris view.  Juliette, Wiktor’s ex, has translated Dwa Serduszka from Polish to French and Zula is unhappy with the translation, which most likely includes some self-consciousness about her pronunciation.  The manner is which the leitmotif song appears here runs parallel to the first step in the descent of the relationship in Paris.  Zula is defensive and anxious about the Parisian artistic circle Wiktor has introduced her to and she drinks to ease the anxiety of feeling inferior.  Wiktor tells her not to because she is “charme slave” as they say, alluding to how everyone has a narrative role and label in these circles.  Zula is becoming difficult and insecure.  Wiktor is becoming caught up in the scene and ignorant of Zula’s dramatic change of environment.

The film director at the party looks Zula up and down when they arrive.  Wiktor allows this without rebuke, most likely due to the nature of the sexually-lax Parisian art culture. Everyone is beautiful and chic at the party.  Zula immediately goes for the drinks.  She then sees Juliette and approaches her abruptly (yet with restraint for Zula), subtly challenging her French translation of Dwa Serduzska.  Juliette calmly explains her reasoning according to the lyrics’ metaphors. It’s obvious Juliette sees through what’s happening in the situation here..  Juliette’s part is small but the actress is excellent and conveys a lot.  She eventually mentions how the transition to Paris must’ve been a shock...the cafes, cinemas, shops, restaurants. Apparently Juliette sees this shock more than Wiktor does.  Zula tries to play it cool here but you can see she’s flustered.  This is a game she’s not used to playing. She then retorts that her life in Poland was better.  

Wiktor is talking to someone and looks over and sees Zula and the Film Director sitting closely, flirting.  Zula glances back over at him to see if he cares, but Wiktor stays put.  Then later she aggressively confronts him about giving her story “more color”.  It is apparent now that he has enhanced her Polish story to seem more dramatic in order to captivate his French friends and colleagues.  Wiktor shrugs this off.  Zula’s vibe is not carefree and cool like the rest of the party with her straightforward, intense rawness which creates an isolation for herself.   She sits in the bathroom now alone, drinking from a bottle, talking to herself in the mirror.  She calls Wiktor a jerk, but then says she loves him. She calls herself an idiot at one point. She continues to talk in the mirror as if to console herself.  And I can’t help to mention how much she looks like a young Gena Rowlands here.  It reminds me of the 1968 film Faces, which is also black and white.  They look so much alike, and both fantastic actresses that are blonde, voluptuous and troubled.

Gena Rowlands in Faces (1968)

Joanna Kulig in Cold War (2018) Wiktor, unknowingly and excitedly, opens the bathroom door and says that they’re all going to the Jazz Club now.  Zula says she’s a bit sad and wants Wiktor to come in the bathroom with her, but he ignores this and says let’s go.  She takes a moment to herself and then it cuts to the club.  She looks miserable and wasted sitting at the bar.  As we go, I am still noticing the framing I mentioned at the beginning with the subject at the bottom, but for this shot she really seems low!

Her melancholy is interrupted by an upbeat, American song (”Rock Around the Clock Tonight”) and she gets up reinvigorated and starts dancing enthusiastically with a few different guys.  The camera goes handheld and is the messiest camerawork of the film (a good messy).  She eventually gets sloppy and gets on the bar and almost falls and people drunkenly cheer as Wiktor exasperatedly watches.

We then see Wiktor carrying her into their room.  Zula says he is no longer a man in Paris like he was in Poland, and says she and the director get along well in attempt to get under his skin further.  He then sits alone in the dark and smokes a cigarette.

It now cuts to Zula in a sound studio singing into a mic in French.  I don’t speak any French, but her accent and pronunciation feels correct, but her spirit is muted...and we soon see one reason why.  Wiktor’s voice ominously interrupts her over a speaker behind glass in the recording booth.  Now the shot is on him and he looks disheveled and dark and tells Zula they only have 40 minutes left and not to blow it.  There is a deep hate in his eyes we haven’t seen yet, perhaps retribution for calling out his manhood and their recent relationship woes. An engineer and the film director are also in the booth.  There is just a bad energy in the room and anyone that’s ever tried to perform anything would be able to detect how difficult it would be to bring a great performance here.  The music starts back up and Wiktor looks down as if disappointed right before she starts singing.  

We are at a listening party now for Zula’s record at the French Director’s apartment.  Zula is standing in the middle of the room alone, listening intently as several others sit around in the background drinking champagne.  Dwa Serduszka plays, but now in French.  It’s okay but not great. It doesn’t have the soul that it had before in Polish.  I’m trying to put my finger on it, but the French seems a little stiff and the vocal track seems extra-produced.  Too loud and too clear when mixed with the band’s instruments and it’s just not what it was before like the first time at the jazz club, for example.  Again, this leitmotif song is also a metaphorical indicator for the stage in the relationship. She looks over at Wiktor who is cooly leaning on the wall off to the side (maybe too cool) and gives Zula a nod similar to his nod after the jazz club performance.  But this nod doesn’t have the effect it did then and seems oddly forced.  The record playing here in this posh Paris apartment compared to the Polish rural girl singing at the beginning of the film is night and day. It’s obvious why, if you think about it.  They’ve taken a folk Polish song, translated it to French for a rural Polish singer, then recorded and produced it in a slick Paris sound studio under difficult conditions.  How could the quality not suffer a bit?! Another example of the larger outside obstacles making it impossible for them, even in a free society like Paris, France.    

It cuts to them now walking home afterwards.  Immediately it’s apparent Zula is unhappy.  Wiktor recognizes this but apparently didn’t know while at the party.  As they pass a fountain next to the street, Zula throws the record in <splash> yet continues to mostly hold her sadness in, which has become more of a depression at this point.  Assimilating is one thing, but they have gotten into this habit of holding back and not being up front, maybe due to the social circles they run in now.  Zula cooly mentions that the French Director has fucked her well 6 times and "not like a Polish artist in exile,” which causes an eruption in Wiktor (what she wanted) and he slaps her.  

This is strange to mention but, technically, the slap doesn’t sync with the sound. Lol. I watched this part 3 or 4 times to make sure and it just doesn’t (unless there was a lag in the internet connection).  Maybe nobody else notices this, but I’ve had to edit-sync slaps, kicks and punches before many times on this very computer and immediately saw something didn’t look/sound right. After the hard slap, Zula raises up and says, “Now we’re talking”, which is sarcastic but also the truth.  Often one needs a crisis moment to break out of a behavioral habit and apparently the French translation broke the camel’s back. The next day Wiktor frantically goes to the Director’s apartment looking for Zula.  He stomps through the rooms looking for her.  The Director then says she went back to Poland.  Wiktor slowly walks out of the apartment with a terrified look on his face.   Wiktor has become unhinged and plays maniacally on the piano at the Jazz Club.  The other band members just stop playing and look at him as he bangs on the keys in isolation.  There is some slight comical levity here for a couple of seconds due to the look on the clarinet player’s face.    You assume Wiktor has lost his job.  He is now miserably pumping coins in a phone booth for talk time to find out where Zula is in Poland.  Afterwards, Wiktor goes to what I assume is an embassy.  A Polish man at a desk tries to dissuade him from leaving Paris and going back to Poland.  You can see the Eiffel Tower outside the window as the man asks Wiktor why he would ever want to leave this place.  He says Wiktor doesn’t exist anymore to Poland because he left and let down all the young people he worked with. The man takes a drink from his cup and reacts as if he’s spiked it with something strong, perhaps how he’s able to get through his job.  He then mentions there is a way Wiktor can go back if he truly regrets what he has done.  

The Exiles Return

It is 1959 and we see Zula back in Poland on a dreary, crowded train with peasants.  Soldiers whistle at her as she walks on a snowy road.  She has come to visit a very broken, gaunt Wiktor who is being held prisoner by the military for being an exile.  He says he has to be here for 15 years and got off lucky.  Zula gives the guard what I assume are cigarettes which buys them 10 minutes alone.  

His right hand has been beat severely.  They kiss and Zula says she will wait for him.  Wiktor tells her to find someone else, but Zula says she will get him out.

Cuts to 1964, 5 years later.  A performing Zula is on stage singing a ridiculous Latin-infused song with a black wig on, resembling a late Judy Garland.  She looks overweight and drunk with her comical, sombrero-wearing band. We now see an older Wiktor backstage with Kaczmarek who is holding an unhappy, despondent child.  Kaczmarek doesn’t look like he’s aged a bit and still has a detached soullessness about him.  With Kaczmarek, you wait for him to be rude or mean but he is not.  He always stays at a steady, robotic hum of cordiality.   It is revealed Wiktor can no longer play music because he can no longer use his right hand.  It is also now apparent that Zula married Kaczmarek in order for Wiktor to be released.  Zula now comes off stage and walks quickly toward them but drunkenly falls down. She manages to rapidly get up and falls directly into Wiktor’s arms, completely disregarding Kaczmarek and her son.  They go off to the restroom together and sit on the floor staring at one another.  Zula pulls off her wig, perhaps finally able to shed this horrible identity she's had to create to survive. 

She asks him to get her out of here...for good.  

The two take a crowded bus and get dropped off on a country road next to a lovely field.  They look slightly rejuvenated but stolid.  

Early in the film, Irena and Wiktor sat in the van while Kaczmarek took a walk to take a pee.  Kaczmarek then aimlessly walked into the ruins of this old church. He looked around, then left...point being we’ve seen this place before.  And earlier, even Kaczmarek’s face showed a certain amount of reverence for this old church and felt the power it gave off.  Wiktor and Zula now enter this same church.  There is a circular hole in the ceiling, perhaps so God can see them.    

They now kneel with a candle lit in front of them on an alter with a row of white pills. They have a brief, simple marriage ceremony. They both have a glow to them.  They cross themselves and mention God.  They ingest the pills.

They kiss.  

They then sit on a bench at dusk and look out into the field, holding hands, quiet.

You can hear the insects and an occasional bird chirp.  Both have dark circles under their eyes.  It’s so beautiful yet so sad.   Zula then says, “Let’s go to the other side.  The view will be better there”.  They stand and go, leaving an open frame.  A gentle gust blows the wheat from behind where they were sitting.  Perhaps God’s sigh...

This last time I watched, the ending really got me...and is powerful now as I write about it.  As mentioned in the intro, Pawlikowski’s last film Ida incorporated a particular style.  Pawlikowski never moved the camera until the end of that film, so when he did the viewer would be raised up in a transcendental way as the first external music came in, lifting us from the real world for a few moments.  I think he did the same thing here with Cold War in a different way. The moment of transcendence for this film comes at the end also but not with the movement of the camera but with the movement of the wheat behind the bench before cutting to black.  This film is high on realism, but this gust is something otherworldly, therefore a powerful contrast from the stark, real world tribulations previously in the entirety of the film up to this point.  This is what makes it so heartbreaking and beautiful and poetic all at the same time.  And also, for a moment, the viewer might weigh whether the fate of Wiktor and Zula is so horrible after all.   “for my parents” appears before the credits, pointing to the fact that the story is based on the filmmaker’s parents’ true experience during that time period.  Bach’s Goldberg Variations comes in and you know it’s Glen Gould when you hear the humming, which I don’t necessarily like but it doesn’t ruin the mood.  Bach was also used for the ending of Ida and is also the only non-diegetic music used for Cold War.  

In conclusion, I think every great film has to have a surface story that one can follow and then a large idea hidden within that story (or as a result) to meditate on which includes something deep about the human condition.  With some films, one has to work to find out what that larger idea is. For future posts, I may try to specifically focus on this “larger idea” rather that breaking down the entire film.  This often appears as a question, not an answer, and Cold War does this masterfully.

[upennmanuscripts]

Nau, Naulet, Noël: Part I (a poem by Olivier Maillard)

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 36/52

Noels (Book of Christmas Carols in French), Philadelphia, Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E 211, fols. 17v (detail).

As the holiday season approaches, it seems appropriate to devote a pair of posts to a lovely, if little-known gem of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s collection of manuscripts. This charming and well-used manuscript on paper contains an anthology of lyrics for Christmas carols, or Noels, written principally in French and dating to the 1520s. The book was acquired by the Free Library of Philadelphia in June 1955 from H.P. Kraus in New York, and Kraus’ catalogue 75 of that year remains the most substantial existing description of the manuscript.1 As the author of that catalogue description wrote, “it will be a gratifying task for a scholar interested in French popular poetry to study the present manuscript very thoroughly.” In the sixty-five years since the appearance of the Kraus catalogue, this assignment has not, to my knowledge, been completed! The book is known to local audiences in Philadelphia because its contents have been used as the basis for a series of period music concerts by the local Renaissance Band, Piffaro. However, the anthology is entirely absent from any scholarly literature on French Renaissance music or art, which is a shame. The forty-four carols appear to be composed of certain well-known songs represented in other manuscript anthologies, such as Oxford, Keble College, MS 33 (see Parkes 1979, 117–26),2 but also present are several unique or unrecorded texts. Many of the songs are included  in later printed works, such as one issued in Le Mans around 1590—Paris, BnF, Rothschild MS 2982—which purports to contain traditional Christmas songs “les plus requis du commun peuple” (“the most sought-after by the common folk”). The use of the regional Angevin terms “nau” and its diminutive “naulet” for Noël, as well as the notarial document reused as a wrapper mentioning Nantes, point to the Western Loire Valley as the region of production and use, indeed not far from Le Mans, where the Rothschild pamphlet was printed.3

The carols included in the anthology are of course mostly anonymous and lack any kind of musical notation. Instead, the particular melody to be followed is usually singled out at the beginning of the carol. Upon examining the manuscript last year, I noticed that one carol, “Il fault mourir à ce coup cy,” is attributed by an inscription to its author Olivier Maillard (ca. 1420–1502; fol. 41v), the famous populist preacher active during the time of Louis XI and Charles VIII. This well-known poem consists of a rather macabre warning of the impending last judgement, even though it is to be sung, rather ironically and self-consciously, to the rhythm of a rather carefree bergeronnette savoysienne (a shepherdess’ ditty).4 Its presence here is a remarkable eschatological departure from the pleasant, festive Christmas songs that otherwise fill the book’s pages!

Lewis E 211, fol. 41v

Musical setting from Loewen, “Olivier Maillard in an Age of Reform.”

Beyond its lyrics, the volume is notable for its twenty-five vividly drawn, watercolor-tinted scenes added to the blank marginal spaces surrounding the text. The rest of this post will examine these, while next week’s post will be dedicated to another lyrical discovery. The images, which could themselves be studied further, exhibit an idealizing, bucolic sentiment, combining sacred scenes (and undoubted references to Nativity plays) with rustic details of shepherds and peasants preparing meals and playing music. At the beginning of the volume (fol. 1r) is the most formal of such illustrations, consisting of a full-page Nativity miniature showing three attendant shepherds and one shepherdess (with a curious wide-brimmed hat) alongside the Holy Family.

Lewis E 211, fol. 1r

In the frame enclosing the miniature we find the Marian Antiphon, usually associated with Easter rather than Christmas: “Regina celi letare, alleluya; Quia quem meruisti portare, alliluya; Resurrexit sicut dixit, alleluya; Ora pro nobis Deum, alleluya; amen, amen” (“Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia; The Son you merited to bear, alleluia; Has risen as he said, alleluia; Pray to God for us, alleluia”). The two-dozen  remaining illustrations (counting across-the-gutter compositions as one) are certainly by the same artist but are unframed and often extend to the edges of the paper, which has been trimmed on account of heavy use. These illustrations are drawn in a loose and economical style, but would seem to be the work of a talented artist, though whether he/she was a formally trained professional remains up for discussion. The lively scenes, a study in pastoral life of the 1520s, are worth examining one by one, especially as the blog format permits an endless display of illustrations! Indeed, they could be transformed into wonderful advent calendar of sorts. They represent:

The slaughter of a boar (fol. 4r).

A man with a plate of food drinking from a gourd (fol. 5r).

A man holding food and drink (fol. 6r).

A man carving meat with a dog watching from the right (fol. 8r);

An upright goat near a tree and a man playing bagpipes with a dog alongside (fol. 9r).

A man with a staff and a dog on a leash (fol. 10r).

A man and woman with staffs resting, a man standing holding a staff, and an angel with a banderole announcing “Paix est criée” (fol. 11v).

A shepherdess resting with her sheep, a shepherd resting against a rock, and a shepherdess standing with a staff (fol. 12r).

A shepherd standing with a staff and a man playing hurdy-gurdy with a boy (fol. 13r).

A man with a pointed hat (fol. 14v).

The Flight into Egypt with bull and ass (fol. 15v).

A man threshing crops with a sickle and Joseph from the Flight into Egypt (fol. 16r).

A boar playing the bagpipe and two men and a woman dancing (fol. 17v).

A king and two peasants sharing a meal (fol. 19r).

A woman shearing a lamb (fol. 20v).

A prophet holding a banderole inscribed “Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium” (fol. 22r ).

A jester playing a flute (fol. 22v).

Another jester playing a flute (fol. 23r).

An Angel holding a banderole inscribed “Gloria in excelsis Deo” while below a man reclines in the right margin and another stands and plays the flute on the left (fol. 24r).

Two men labeled Michau and Robin facing each other across the text block (fol. 25r).

Two grayish figures, one playing the drum (fol. 26r).

A man playing the drum and the flute (fol. 26v).

A man playing a pipe to an upright goat with staff (fol. 29r).

The Temptation of Adam (fol. 30v).

The serpent and the Temptation of Eve (fol. 31r).

A man with a sword (fol. 32r).

Mary and the Christ Child (fol. 34r).

And a man and a woman playing instruments (fol. 35v).

The manuscript can be dated to ca. 1520–30 on the basis of the style of the script, marginal images, and costume, with later sixteenth-century additions to the text towards the end. The pastoral aspect of the illustrations connects them to compositions found in tapestries of this period. The rustic appearance of the figures and settings also recalls roughly contemporary treatments of Virgilian poetry, especially an illustrated French translation of the Eclogues (Paris, BnF, MS fr. 1639). The precise recipient or intended audience for such a volume, which is clearly the result of significant effort, is unknown, but if we take up the challenge posed by the author of the manuscript’s 1955 sale catalogue entry, we may be rewarded with further contextual information about the manuscript’s genesis and use.

  from WordPress http://bibliophilly.pacscl.org/noels-noels-part-i/

[shining-dawn]

OMG thanks yo @arianaisdead for tagging me. I love doing these.

Nickname: people online like yo call me Shiny. I wonder why.

Zodiac: cancer. Don't expect me to act like it, though.

Last thing I searched: either "Pillar of Souls," or "take my hand even though I'm a sinner." It's hard to keep track with all these tabs.

Favorite musicians: I have recently discovered Danny Schmidt and Lukas Graham, and I love them. I also adore Michael Jackson, Fallout Boy, Voltaire, Bon Jovi, Of Monsters And Men, and several great artists that have been recommended to me by friends on Tumblr.

Song(s) stuck in my head: "Take My Hand" by Lukas Graham, "Movement" by Hozier, and "Spooky Scary Skeletons." Yes, I can have multiple songs stuck in my head at once. Yes, it's terrifying sometimes.

If I had a time machine, would I visit the past or future: as much as there is a lot of history I'd like to see, the future is infinitely more mysterious, and not knowing is practically unbearable. The fact that there will still be more to learn after I die torments my every waking moment.

Do I get asks: very very rarely. Occsisionally, some kind soul takes interest, and I am awoken from my deathkess slumber.

Following: 672 and counting. Most are pretty inactive, though.

Would I rather be rich or famous: rich, because I know exactly what to do with money. No idea what to do with fame. Also, being able to afford my medical expenses would be nice.

Hours of sleep: oh, you know, between 15 minutes and 15 hours. Normal, healthy amounts, like a normal, healthy person. People are do weird, thinking my life is chaotic.

Lucky numbers: I have never found any numbers to be particularly lucky. I'm rather fond of 96 and Tau, though.

What I'm wearing: t-shirt and sweat pants, as always. Also black socks, because I have class.

Dream Job: house pet I'd like to write stories for movies and video games, and help animate them. Or do research.

Dream trip: there are a lot of places I'd like to visit, but I keep forgetting them. Ultimately, anywhere where I have something to do is nice.

If I where an animal what would I be: who knows? I could be anything. I'd like to be an octopus, a dolphin, a snake, a swan, a mantis shrimp, a bat, an owl, or a human, though.

Favorite book: I'm supposed to pick one? Dies fan fiction count? Shit, um, I liked Elantris and The Halls of Law. I'd really like to finish Kingkiller Chronicles.

Favorite Movie: currently, Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Favorite Shows: Disenchantment, Stranger Things, The Dragon Prince, and She-Ra are all pretty high on my list.

Favorite Games: Submachine, Being One, Minecraft, and Lobotomy Corp are all fantastic. Also, Magic: Duels and Magic: Arena.

Do I play any instruments: I have learned a little of the Piano and the Bagpipes. I'm not great at either.

What languages so I speak: fluent in English. I can speak a tiny bit of French. No hablo español.

I'll tag @roseverdict @gaypurplecat @anxya @darksteel-relic @kingbrickisthelocalcryptid and @lucifers-favorite-sweater but no pressure, though.

[sketcher1994]

21 Questions Game

Tagged by @fairyofthefriz, thank you!

RULES. Answer 21 questions and tag 21 people you want to know better.

Nickname: Sketch/Sketchy/Chrissy/Chris/Teen (Honestly, depends on who’s talking to me…)

Zodiac Sign: Taurus

Height: 5’ 5.5” (166cm)

Hogwarts House: I don’t actually know this…

Last Thing Googled: Thunderstruck AC/DC… (Reading “Catch The Thunder” (Fraxus fanfic) on fanfiction.net and I keep looking up the songs that are playing in the background of the scenes… Gotta get the mood right!)

Favourite Musicians: Shinedown, Disturbed, Halestorm… Been listening to a lot of Five Finger Death Punch lately…

Song Stuck in Head: None at the moment… but last one I remember was one of the chefs at work (might have been yesterday… lost with my days…) getting “You’re waaaay too beeeautiful girl, that’s why it’ll never work, you’ll have me suuuicidal, suuuicidal if you say it’s o-over” on loop in my head… all because he sang the word “suicidal” when I asked how he was doing…

Following: 102

Followers: 383 (wow… Thank you! *-*)

Do I Get Asks: Nope… but probably my own fault with my regular long-term hiatuses… Sorry…?

Amount of Sleep: Sleep? What’s that? Maybe 4-5hrs a night? Definitely not enough for the 50-60hrs a week that I work… and I’m usually run off my feet at work…

Lucky Number: 2

Wearing: Black skinny jeans and plain black t-shirt with black biker boots and an Umbreon hoodie… I was KPing this morning instead of waitressing… My hair is also in bunches…

Dream Job: One where people enjoy their job and actually care about doing it properly… I’d still be a waitress and I wouldn’t (happily) work at a place without good food – that is the nightmare of waiting staff… They’re the ones who get it if the food isn’t good… Tip your waiter! They’re stuck between unhappy customer    and grumpy chef!

Dream Trip: The one I usually take (once every 8-18mths) – Ireland where my friend lives and we can just drive around like tourists and talk about anything and everything whether it’s important or not.

Instruments: Ehhhh, I used to play the recorder, the keyboard, the guitar, the chanter (first stage of bagpipes)…

Languages: English and German (but that’s very rusty ��� I would like to go to Germany for a while and immerse myself in it… I preferred it to English when I was younger.)

Favorite Songs: I hate being asked this! It’s really difficult! It depends on my mood… so I’ll choose my favourite songs from my favourite bands… Amaryllis by Shinedown. Asylum by Disturbed. (Currently) White Dress by Halestorm. Wrong Side of Heaven by Five Finger Death Punch.

Random Fact: I’m terrified of cats due to several incidents with the family cat growing up (he was 9mths older than me and never liked me…) and I technically have 2 cats… Both of which I adopted (“Baby” Blue – my first cat, black and    white, came from B.A.R.K., needed rehomed due to being an indoor cat with 2    other cats that, by age 2, he didn’t get on with. Now lives out in the    countryside at my parents’ house where he hunts in woodland and fields and    plays with his best friend Harry (the cat from two doors down… they may be in love…). “Madam” Bella – my second cat, white with brown patches that have black stripes and spots, she’s an indoor town-cat, her previous owner couldn’t take care of her anymore due to personal issues, but her previous owner had found her at 5wks old with a deep gash behind her ear that was bleeding out, she still has a lot of kitten behaviours now), due to my need for a companion because of my mental health issues. And, before anyone asks, I can’t have a dog because I can’t walk one, due to my joint condition, and I’m not home enough for a dog anyway…

Aesthetic: No idea what to write here… *awkward laugh*

Tagging: I don’t know who’s still here… I haven’t been on in so long, but I’d love to get to know you guys better, so this is open to anyone comfortable enough to give this a go! Please tag me if you feel up to it!

[dweemeister]

Braveheart (1995)

The summer of 1995 provided moviegoing audiences with a third Die Hard movie, Casper, batnipples, Disney’s problematic Pocahontas, Apollo 13, Waterworld, and one of the most understanding children’s films of all time in Babe. That is a busy summer to say the least. Amid that clutter, one of the most successful movies of that period could not possibly have been made now, let alone find the audience it did twenty-three years ago. Released by Paramount in North America and 20th Century Fox internationally, that film is Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, a thirteenth-century war epic about Scottish knight William Wallace (played by Gibson) taking arms against King Edward I of England in the First War of Scottish Independence. Braveheart was Gibson’s second directorial work after more than a decade as a figurehead for 1980s Australian cinema and presence in the Lethal Weapon series. This is a visually striking, technically accomplished film rife with homophobia, misogyny, and historical howlers that continues to sharply polarize viewers about its cinematic merits. Through the fires of these controversies, the extremely violent Braveheart has bludgeoned its way to becoming an iconic fixture of 1990s Hollywood.

It is 1280 in Scotland. As a child, William Wallace survives King Edward “Longshanks” (Patrick McGoohan) invasion of Scotland. Following Scottish defeat, Wallace is taken on a European journey by his uncle Argyle (Brian Cox). Years later, Wallace (Gibson as an adult; James Robinson as a child) will return to his village and marry childhood friend Murron MacClannough (Catherine McCormack as an adult; Mhari Calvey as a child). But Longshanks has granted his English nobles in Scotland right of the first night, and Wallace’s successful attempt to save Murron from rape eventually ends in her execution. Enraged, Wallace – assisted by his fellow villagers – massacres the English forces sent to his hometown and drives the remaining English military from Scotland. Longshanks will not take military defeat without response, ordering Prince Edward (Peter Hanly) to quash the rebellion. War and royal intrigue breaks out, leading to Edward’s wife, Isabella of France (Sophie Marceau), being sent to negotiate with Wallace and the two falling for each other far too quickly.

With that plot in mind, viewers should understand that the only historically accurate aspects of Braveheart are the names of the historical figures involved and place names – really, that’s it. The Scots wear kilts, despite the fact kilts would not be invented for another several hundred years. If one wants to understand the First Scottish War for Independence and the history surrounding this era, read a book instead. Screenwriter Randall Wallace admitted that his script was based less on history than on the epic poem The Actes and Deidis of the Illustre and Vallyeant Campioun Schir William Wallace, written by Blind Harry in the fifteenth century.

In its medieval swordplay, Braveheart has more to do with Spartacus (1960) than anything in a 1930s-40s 20th Century Fox or Warner Bros. swashbuckler. The film’s enormous battle scenes – shot in Ireland with over 1,500 members of the Irish Army Reserve participating on both sides of this cinematic conflict – are excellent collaborations in deploying men on foot and horseback smashing into each other on a grassy plain with a frantic camera attempting to make sense of the scrum. The use of 200-pound mechanical horses running on nitrogen cylinders even fooled an animal welfare organization that decided to investigate the film because of the effect’s realism. When not indulging in ill-advised slow-motion, these battles, perhaps too frequently placed into the film to the point they becoming fatiguing, are spectacular in their choreography. The collaborative effort between Gibson, cinematographer John Toll (1994′s Legends of the Fall, 1998′s The Thin Red Line), editor Steven Rosenblum (1989′s Glory, Legends of the Fall) and second unit crew members contributes to a blood-soaked, crashing symphony of mangled limbs and human brutality that no other film depicting medieval warfare has since equaled – especially the Battle of Stirling Bridge, which is horrifying in its impact despite the absence of the crucial, eponymous bridge. Many films since Braveheart portraying contemporary war likewise pale in comparison.

Braveheart would be a disastrous film without John Toll’s cinematography, whether in action sequences or peaceful moments. The use of natural lighting and the on-location shooting in Ireland and Scotland appeals to Toll’s strengths for exterior shots, lending Braveheart a near-mythical angle amid large landscape shots blessed with eerie cloud covers and looming, verdant mountains. Toll makes Scotland a place of dreams – especially in the blue of twilight when the sun’s reds have retreated westward, welcoming the cool and comfort of the evening. This suits the film, as Gibson is not filming a historical drama. No computerized flourishes or too many swooping helicopter-aided vistas pry the viewer from the film. Toll’s camera for these landscapes and shots of the village (reportedly built by the production crew to Toll’s specifications) remain still or are gently heightened or lowered by crane shots. Close-ups are mercifully spare, reserved almost entirely for violent scenes.

The word “freedom” is tossed around with such promiscuity and depthlessness that Braveheart’s 178 minutes cannot be justified. Wallace’s screenplay touches lightly on the era’s politics, Wallace’s love life, and the ideas why Scotland should be independent from England. Political philosophy this is not. Look elsewhere for films of military leaders with a wracked conscience, psychologically impacted by the slaughter they have initiated. Instead, we are presented with anachronistic dialogue like this: 

WILLIAM WALLACE: Before we let you leave, your commander must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own arse.

Sure, dude. If possible, maybe that commander might have a future as a contortionist.

Braveheart presents William Wallace as a man on a revenge-fueled mission who will consider all possible means to liberate his people – he has an irreverent sense of humor that makes given scenes a tonal mishmash. Wallace’s romantic interludes with Murron and Isabella? Gibson, McCormack, and Marceau, respectively, are all unconvincing – despite an enormous assist from Toll in these passionate scenes.

Casual homophobia is directed toward Prince Edward (later King Edward II), the son of Edward Longshanks (Edward I; who was a bellicose monarch, but becomes a cartoonish archetype in this film). Prince Edward is depicted as effeminate and gay, and his lover Philip (Stephen Billington) is killed by defenestration. The film further compounds this depiction by associating the Prince’s homosexuality to his ineffectual character – Longshanks constantly chastises his son’s lack of masculinity and Princess Isabella also disapproves of her husband for those qualities. This is not to say homophobia did not exist in the late thirteenth century, but that Gibson and Wallace are doubling down on the Prince, making him a punchline puppet of a leader because of who he is. Aggressive masculinity and sexual expressions inundate the battle scenes, too – swinging swords should be interpreted as one might think.

Women have almost zero agency in Braveheart, as they are depicted as sexual vessels to remain pure and chaste while the men fraternize and fornicate all they wish. Wallace’s campaign of violence begins not because the English lords have invoked right of the first night (prima noctis) for other women, but because prima noctis has been invoked for Murron (whose sexual faithfulness is idealized after her death in a pair of visions Wallace – who, by sleeping with Isabella, does not return that same faith – has). One of the few topics that women speak of throughout the film is sexual interest/satisfaction or lack thereof – Isabella’s only purpose in the film is to bang Wallace so that she can deliver an inflammatory piece of news to Longshanks on his deathbed.

Other than Toll, another craftsperson showcases their mastery in this film. That master is composer James Horner (Glory, 1997′s Titanic). 1995 proved to be a career year for Horner, having composed the scores for Apollo 13, Balto, and Casper. His second-best score of the year behind Apollo 13, Braveheart’s score is mostly devoid of the wanking masculinity described above, combining cultural elements that might seem inappropriate for a film about Scottish warriors – given the use of Japanese woodwinds in Legends of the Fall (a generational epic drama about a Montana ranching family), Horner’s instrumental appropriation knows no bounds, for good and ill. Along with the requisite bagpipes (rather than the Great Highland bagpipes that are generally associated to be “bagpipes”, Horner utilizes Uilleann pipes – Irish in origin, Uilleann pipes are softer and considered to produce a less harsh sound than Great Highland Bagpipes), this heavily orchestral score also benefits from a boys’ choir reminiscent of Casper, Horner’s affinity for Irish music, and quena (an Andean flute) for “The Secret Wedding”.

Three major motifs exist in Horner’s score: for Wallace, Murron, and Isabella. Wallace’s motif is first in the main title through the Uilleann pipes and will be the most-repeated theme in the film, fragmented up by percussion in the battle scenes, and often accompanied by strings in melodic unison (most heroically at 6:05 in “Freedom/The Execution Bannockburn”). Murron’s motif assumes melodramatic, (and very quickly afterwards) tragic connotations upon its most memorable appearance on quena in “The Secret Wedding”, chorally reprised at 3:10 in the “End Credits”. Dominating the final third of the film is Isabella’s motif, best outlined in “For the Love of a Princess” by the entire orchestra, and containing echoes of “The Ludlows” from Legends of the Fall. Credit the London Symphony Orchestra for providing a gorgeous recording, even if Horner’s score to Braveheart is not the most musically interesting effort of his career.

Producers Bruce Davey (Gibson’s longtime producer) and Alan Ladd, Jr. (son of legendary Paramount contracted actor Alan Ladd) navigated numerous obstacles at 20th Century Fox and Paramount to complete the film. This enormous, nearly three-hour production of a time period unfamiliar to North American moviegoers could not be produced at this scope today. A 2018 Braveheart would require even more major studios from various nations to finance the project, as epic films have all but disappeared from the multiplex because of their forbidding costs and lack of action star/superhero connections. Gibson’s ambition is staggering here. Yet Braveheart is let down by Gibson’s hypermasculinity and homophobia – reflective of his troublesome political dimensions.

The film’s cultural importance when it was released is unquestionable, but it remains to be seen how time will treat Gibson’s directorial breakout work. By being released in the mid-1990s, it is among the last Hollywood epic films largely untouched by excessive CGI – the effects are gruesome because they are practical. Though the characterizations are simplistic, Braveheart is an effective character piece for many, if not for this writer. Caught between the praises of fanboys of a certain demographic and those who loathe Gibson and/or Braveheart, I can neither adulate nor dismiss this movie outright. Bring on the insults on my manhood, but say it with a Scottish accent, would you kindly?

My rating: 6.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[whyisthebureauinshambles]

The TAZ Balance crew as an orchestra

the bureau is in shambles because Kravitz - in an attempt to fulfill his living dream of being a conductor - decided to start a bureau of balance orchestra.

Lup and Barry: After their training at the Legato Conservatory, Lup and Barry feel confident in the violin and piano respectively. Kravitz transcribes all of the low strings into piano parts for Barry to play. Lup’s violin has flame decal stickers on it.

Magnus: Since he already has some background with string instruments, he wanted to broaden his horizons by learning trumpet. Even if he’s not entirely correct, he plays loudly and confidently - he’s really trying his best. He practices in his room and takes his mouthpiece everywhere. He’s absolutely that guy that will start buzzing during any long walk or in the middle of dinner.

Lucretia: Lucretia is a modest but wicked good clarinet player. She never plays loud enough but her technique is so flawless that everyone can’t help but wonder how the heck she learned to do that. She can play her scales in a minute and a half, and has all the music memorized. She likes to learn solo pieces on her own but hasn’t played them for anyone else yet.

Taako: He took the oboe but honestly isn’t too pleased about it. It sounds like a dying duck and you know he spends precious spell slots for that sweet mellow tone. He has a tendency to improvise and at this point, they’re not too sure he even knows how to read sheet music.

Davenport: Plays percussion. He has a deadly accuracy for time and rhythm but he hates mallet percussion with a passion. This was discovered after a particularly contentious discussion about the vibraphone (”just write it into Barry’s piano part, I’m not holding four mallets”). His favorites are snare and timpani.

Merle: Merle had some difficulty fitting into the orchestra. He originally wanted to play the bassoon but it was too big and absolutely out of the question. After failing several attempts at other instruments, he demanded to play the bagpipes. Kravitz pleaded with him that no, bagpipes cannot play in an orchestra, please Merle, pick something else. Merle could not be swayed. He plays the bagpipes.

Angus: Angus plays the french horn and he’s absolutely freaking amazing, of course. He takes his role very seriously and will probably cry if he messes up. This is ridiculous because, like, Taako has been playing an F# for the past two minutes because he’s bored and wants Kravitz’s attention, and Merle isn’t even playing the right song; nevertheless, little Ango tries his very best and loves to help everyone else. He likes to learn Faerun’s traditional music and plays them for the rest of the crew.

Carey and Killian: Kravitz convinced Team Sweet Flips to join so that the brass section could be completed. Killian took the tuba and Carey was gonna play trombone but couldn’t figure out how to buzz with her lizard lips. She said she’d help with any non-wind instrument they end up needing…meaning Kravitz has written a triangle part for every song they play. Carey is freaking psyched about it.

Avi: He volunteered to fill the needed trombone spot. He’s great in rehearsals and doesn’t cause a lot of trouble, but Magnus did convince him once to launch his slide clear across the quad.

Johann: Initially, he had adamantly refused to have any interaction at all with this hell band, but after Kravitz’s many desperate pleas, he finally agreed to help teach instrument lessons, and he gives them original compositions from time to time. He said he’d play fiddle if they desperately need it, but Lup insisted that she has it covered. He’s secretly pretty relieved.

Kravitz loves traditional orchestral and symphonic literature but everyone else mostly just wants to play Fantasy Star Trek and Fantasy Harry Potter, so that’s usually what they end up doing. Kravitz figures they can get to “the good stuff” once they get a bit better, and after he convinces Merle to play the flute, or saxophone, just anything besides the goddamn bagpipes.

[guildwarsstartrekskyrim]

It’s time for another retcon!

This one is one I’ve actually had in mind for a while and really isn’t too earth shattering.  It’s mostly due to the attitude and demeanour of the character than the actual history of the character.

It’s all about Pania Alow.  And her brother Mandrel who happens to be an NPC.  I’d make Mandrel, but really, I already have one rapier/pistol mesmer.  Though, it would be made more for the personality.  But anyway!

While I’ve attempted to build Pania as rather sophisticated and coming from a cultured family, I’m making a slight change.  She’ll still be from a noble family who made their fortune off of piracy (for anyone who wishes to have heard of this, hit me up and I’ll give details to the life of piracy that Pania’s parents, Karl and Tatiana did pursue) and Pania will still be very much a magister of the Durmand Priory, I’m making a slight change in her demeanour from the out going and rather upper crust aspect.

And it’s purely to build a divide between Pania herself and her alter ego the Silver Fox.  The Silver Fox will still very much be a swashbuckler who foils Separatists and Renegades who try to invade Ebonhawke, using a cutting wit and her piercing rapier to stop terrorists and humiliate them at the same time.  The Silver Fox is a vigilante and not seen as a boon by the Ebon Vanguard at all (even though she prevents bombings and plots to kill the peace process).  If anyone wishes to have some more information about the Silver Fox persona, hit me up.

As for Pania, I’m slightly changing things with her to more emulate the character of Evy from The Mummy and The Mummy Returns (not the third one, ‘cause that wasn’t Rachel Weis).  In her everyday life, she’ll still be one who is very much a music aficionado, who enjoys singing, dancing and has learned to play several different musical instruments (flute, harp, tin whistle, violin, piano and even going so far as the bagpipes).  She’ll also be a dedicated magister who feels the history of the world is important and what we discover of that history may change based on how it’s interpreted.  She’ll be a little mousey, and very much like the clumsy professor trope.

She’s still a striking woman, still interested in same sex relationships, and still a very fun loving individual.  And one thing I really want to keep is the sometimes talked about frenemies that has been discussed with @luxelen.  I think that could be fun and made me think of a thing Mandrel, Pania’s brother, might say about the pair.

“Oh, my sister an’ Lady Larkspur are not friends, let’s be perfectly clear about that.  But they’ve made liaisons, allies, friends an’ companions that cross over b’tween the two o’ ‘em, that should anyone act in a disparagin’ manner t’ward one o’ their associates... well, let’s just say may the Six have mercy on their souls.”

So, I still like the idea that Pania and Lux are of that frenemy relationship.

So the retcon’s not too intense, not as much as it was with Flintlock, Grifter and Mia, but it’s been something I’ve thought of.  And as for any aspect of Pania, if someone’s curious about more send me an ask about what aspect interests you and I’ll give a detailed answer.

[fireflythecinnamonjollyrancher]

hello it is once again time for my end of the year wrap up. this should be... interesting

january

finally finally got to have a happy apartment experience!!!!! tried out tea drops which are dope. there was a fair amount of stress revolving around APO induction and the musical rehearsal, but we made it!!! partied hardy (the infamous tess in the washing machine incident) kelli was watching always sunny more often than not. i wore some arguably bad clothing but ya know. gays. we tried to take off my closet door (it did NOT work). the beginning of the goose saga! there was a sleet storm so kelli and i made some popcorn and watched mike birbiglia’s new special. darci, kelli and i went out to eat and then ended up in babcock playing air hockey before watching videos with kai who was on duty. PEP BAND???? some good memories formed there. dogs in the library! got bullied by my library boss to put gas in my car and i sent her a video of proof that i did it “daddy long legs” “stop. what?” “the musical” (i do love timothy) i actually practiced my instrument lol wild. WE (becky, celeste, timothy and i) WATCHED SPIRIT and got wildly drunk -- the origin of “[redacted] [redacted] who???” which is my favorite joke.

february

MORE PEP BAND im actually really glad i spent my last few college months dicking around with the band. one man drumline!!! kai made some good tiktoks in our apartment! miss hanging with them it was really fun. oh i hung out with sam and celeste watching movies “he was a boy, she was a dolphin, can i make it anymore [strangled dolphin noises]” OUR MICROWAVE HANDLE BROKE OFF while kelli was gone man that entire apartment was falling apart (hey dumbass grab from top) -- a list of things that were broken in our apartment: fridge light, front entry light, showerhead, phone. the birth of the beans insta!!!! got hit on when i was at taco bell with timothy by being accused of being trans (taco bell guy was not far off to be fair). oh the improv posters as compared to the posters i built for an organization fair. went out and got daRUNK at what appears to be wandas. really struggled with my period. cut hair with kelli n darci. MOZZ STICKS. “you still a lil bitch???” oh we did kpy pal-entines!!! where we ate good food and watched the princess bride!!! i received the plush goose. there was a possible bombing at the bank next door to where we rehearsed for band. aw i went on a tommy’s date with becky that was cute. they tried to STEAL the QUESO. disagreed with a curb and still have those scars. worked a horrible gig at the theatre. closing shifts at the library baby! middle school tours EW more library dogs! fish hooks song oh my god. drunk mash nights!!! i rewatched HAVEN and had lots of feelings. actually got drunk alone a lot which was Bad. however michael malloys birthday! watched choir concert at work lol. stats final whilst drunk!!!! becky got a piercing

march

here things go downhill rapidly. hit up the trains at least once. oh late library nights with timothy!!!! the best nights i miss hanging with him while at work. struggled with my car. went on a college sponsored adventure to a back alley farm. SCURVY FEARS. opening shifts that were lonely. oh celeste played plague and named it covid and won lol yikes. the infamous apartment cone. we stayed up long enough to see the sunrise on literally the last day in college I would ever have. that was good. I FOUND OUT KELLI HAD GLASSES im still pissed. came home indefinitely. went to st patty’s day at brookes with karrigan and that was SO much fun (this was before things seemed real) the best part of that was the irish pub owner who happened to have a son that went to my college. got my mom onto tik tok. took a gay lit class. can’t believe i took daily fckn walks around the pasture who was i. hosted virtual meetings for apo and played around with the closed captioning. that was fun. shaved my moms head lmaooo. worked on my capstone which im like super proud of? i wish i could have directed it but say law vee. 

april

BAGPIPE CORPS INTERNATIONAL. virtual band wreaked havoc on my animals mental health. my grandmother would always bug me while i was working which i understand now was misplaced love but it was so irritating at the time. we had library meetings once a week or so that was vital to mental health. hosted a really fun “panel” about queer identity for my queer lit class that was able to educate a lot of people. having a capstone class with am*lia was a nightmare. watched a cirque du soleil show for free and lost my mind. wrote a comedic monologue that i suffered through. suffered through papers and projects. worked on a project with celeste and kelli and we had SUCH a good time. i hosted several jackbox nights for both apo and kpy. that was SUCH an exhausting experience. also uno and drawful with the uno group (kelli would win 100% of the time). ranted about group projects lol i struggled. OH THE MOVE OUT DEBACLE i really went off the deep end. kelli’s virtual birthday!!!!

may

we had so many good jackbox nights. academic showcase and honors convocation happened wherein i was name bronco award winner and that really wrecked me too lol. we had a sunday crew hang out for library workers. clarinet game night too! i tried so hard to build community during covid and im not altogether sure i accomplished it but ya know whatever. watsky broke the record! made my “aced it” grad cap which was so FUNNY and still is tbh. becky taught me how to do makeup. took grad pictures at an abandoned farmhouse lol OH MY GOSH BEAUX ARTS AND APO SKIT i was so proud of that night and annette said it was the best one we’d ever had. wish i had done more but we did it boys. also got VERY drunk for it lol completely redid my room. bc it was NASTY. the way i write papers is so SO funny to me. had our last capstones class and then dressed in grad outfits for our last lit meeting . graduated and got all my stuff from college finally. went shopping with timothy, had el puerto with becky (i think?). oh the infamous miller moths UGH shit is nasty. THE FORMING OF BANJO SHRIMPS occurred on may 24 2020 and that was the absolute best thing to come out of this year. started working at my dads agency which was the absolute worst thing to come out of this year. attended my first protest in cos which was good and healthy. started protesting regularly after that. my most poignant memory was laying down in front of city hall and chanting “i cant breathe” for 8 minutes. 

june

it snowed???? i was angry. part of my job was reading my dad’s email and there was some WACKO shit in there. went to brookes for pride as a surprise which was cute n fun. had a horrible interaction with a client. the appearance of the bigfoot statue!!!! we had a vanilla beans hang out. there was a WILD storm that literally made my hide out in the office. 

july

went on a bonkers rant about america bc fuck this place. helped mom out with homework. we had several clients get divorces which was messy. went to a Bad party where i was angry the whole time. went to the top of pikes peak with my grandma and saw many much bigfoot things. we got a GOOSE he hated us so much. oh there was a night where darci and kai came over and we hijacked kelli’s spotify and communicated that way it was SO funny. took a video of the dichotomy of man bc of my long ass leg hair and short ass head hair. shaved my head to the BONE and tried dragon fruit. GOT NIKO ON JULY 24 my sweet sweet boy lil bat looking motherfucker. got denied for life insurance for mental health reasons. 

august

went back to hc for a birthday “party” and to see the band. did a lot in that weekend (stayed with timothy’s family, helped becky move, met kelli’s look-alike, saw timothy and karlie’s new house!!! had lunch with kellis family which is closest to “meet my parents” i think i’ll ever get lmao). got my prof headshots and hate every single one of them but more for self esteem reasons lol. neighbors got goats and my mom lost her marbles. got trapped in traffic on the way back from hc. niko had crackhead energy. oooooooh documented gender crisis. ma got more chickens. went to a birthday party for a high school friend and was just... so out of my element. its weird. took off my grandma’s bathroom door bc she had knee surgery. started a full time job as my grandmother’s caretaker (love working for the family business lol).

september

went to breckenridge with a friend!!!!!! spicy times lol. cleaned the cupboard. had a birf. turned 22. cas finished her drugs!!!! and felt much better. we did a charcuterie board for my birthday which was very fun. Got a mixer set!!! went to hc for homecoming and graduated!!!!! surprised celeste and hannah with a celebration party for them (it was a lot of fun). came up with my BEST joke (summa cum laude). got called tf out for my gender crisis via tarot. got the goose game!!!! played the goose game!!!!

october

applied to chicago center!!!! will now be working there for a year!!!! this was the first documentation of banjo shrimp nights. surprised my dad for boss day by working with the team to fill his office with balloons. house sat for dad’s friends. started taking showers in the dark. went to celestes and made PASTA wow got very drunk and while she slept i just explored a strangers house. voted!!!!! wow. finally (finally) started to accept that i was maybe agender. had a snow day but i couldn’t work so that was fun. had halloween with banjo shrimps where i dressed up as david rose. that was SUCH a good night. participated in ace week!!! then, dressed as radar for actual halloween and had monumental. worked a volunteer haunted house and like... actually did pretty good?? felt like a real adult!!!!

november

so many things happened in november. i finished miraculous ladybug on netflix. had another bad interaction with a client bc the customer is always wrong. shaved my head. PRESENTATION NIGHT to distract from the election lmao what a good time. had so many emotions about the election. then biden won and we lost our damn minds -- video called with celeste and becky to celebrate (with the reminder that we know that this doesn’t solve everything but it was such a huge sigh of relief). started watching the last kids on earth. made more PASTA and soup! got my GHOSTY TATTOO. kahoot night with the banjo shrimps lol. watched the supernatural finale with kelli (what good memories) rewatched 3below good shit. got the chicago job so i quit being an insurance person!!!! brooke came for thanksgiving!!!

december

i dont wanna talk about it but i finally started watching unus annus (theres an archive its not the same but it provided me wild amounts of serotonin). “call that invisible split dye”. crimmus. had a video call with people from high school i rarely if ever see. this entire month has been a fuckin blur my guys but i’m so excited for what’s next. in two days i will be in an apartment in chicago. i will be reunited with my best friend in a little under two weeks. i cannot emphasize enough how excited i am for this next chapter. so yeah. that was my year. im sure there was more memories but that’s what the sideblog is for lol

[jackiedablade]

12 Days of Jashi Christmas - Day 15, Under the Mistletoe

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12759727/1/Under-the-Mistletoe

“Never once thought I would miss this,” Jack whispered to Ashi, who wasn’t sure how to react to the sound of bagpipes as they echoed through the large stone dining hall, covered in evergreen, of the Scotsman’s clan’s castle. He was lucky, he only had to listen to one set of bagpipes his first time. Ashi had to listen to several as they played Christmas carols in harmony. But half a dozen bagpipes was worth it to reunite with his best friend and catch up over the lost decades, especially over a joyous holiday such as Christmas. It was rare that he was ever able to spend a holiday with someone, but he was fortunate to run into his dearest friend, who refused to let him leave until after the celebrations.

The Scotsman exploded with cheers as his ghostly hands wildly clapped in silence as the song, rather thankfully, came to an end. “That’s me girls! Ah raised the finest pipers in all the land!” Considering their instrument, Jack had to admit they were quite good at their task, but couldn’t they have chosen something that sounded more pleasant?

“Ha!” A nearby breaded man guffawed. “I remember a time when I was considered the best in all the clan!”

“Shut it, Gillespie, yer just mad you’ve been bested by a lass!”

The offended Scot said something Jack couldn’t translate, and the Scotsman rose from his seat in response, clutching his spiritual sword in both hands, ready for a brawl. “Them’s fighting words ya--”

“Dad! Not at Christmas!” Flora interjected, stepping between the two. “Peace an’ goodwill, remember?”

“Sorry,” the Scotsman apologized, immediately regretful of his actions. Jack found it a beautiful sight, his boisterous friend restrained by a word from his family. Then again, he stole a glance at Ashi and smiled, the right woman can have a mysterious power over a man.

“Gillespie, yer… well yer the best man to do the pipin’ around here, an' it wooldn’t be terrible if ye played us a piece later. Ah can only die once after all,” the Scotsman conceded, and the dining hall exploded in hearty laughter and many mugs clanked together in agreement.

“I’ll be right back. I’m going to grab some more food,” Ashi excused herself. Jack failed to hide a slight smile as he watched her go, caught himself, and desperately tried to hide his actions, but he wasn’t fooling anyone.

“She’s nice coming and going, eh Jackie?” The Scotsman winked.

“That is not how you treat a lady,” Jack growled, “and I was not--”

“Yes, you were, an’ there’s no shame in it. Oh she’s not nearly as lovely as me dear bonnie lass, may she rest in peace, but if that’s what yer into, have at it.”

He shuddered at the unbidden image of what his friend’s wife’s rear looked like. “Ashi is quite special to me.”

“Aye, ‘twas sickening, all the googly eyes you were making at her earlier.”

“I was…” denial died on the tip of his tongue as the Scotsman stared him down. He sighed, admitting defeat. “Am I that transparent?”

“The Christmas season can do that to people. Stuck indoors, warm fire, good food, fine company, wanderlust dies as ye give into the comforts of home against the harsh elements. It was when Ah proposed to me wife, but at the first sign of spring, Ah was on me way again.”

       “Hmmm,” Jack mindlessly agreed, keeping a careful eye on Ashi as a few clansmen stopped to speak with her.

       Mah little samurai is finally growing up! If ghosts could, the Scotsman would shed a tear of joy for this blessed moment. “Show those fools that she’s yer lass,” he encouraged, watching proudly as Jack confidently strode over. His outward attitude was friendly and casual, as it was always was, but the men felt the intense pressure and stepped away, taking the hint.

“Want some?” Ashi offered him the plate of festive cookies in her hand, one of the few dishes the Scots knew how to make properly.

“Thank you,” he smiled, taking one.

Scotsman nodded, signaling Ranulf to make his move. Ranulf nodded back and haphazardly made his way to the couple, acting as if he was tipsy from too much ale, bumping people as he passed.

“Watch out!” Jack quickly moved to the side, grabbing Ashi and holding her close.

“Perfect,” the Scotsman said quietly, a mischievous grin on his face.

“Dorn’t move, you two!” Flora cried out, glee taking over as if it was Christmas morning and Santa had just arrived. The two froze nervously, what exactly was happening? “Jack and Ashi underneath the mistletoe!”

The dining hall erupted with cheers. For a moment, one could mistake it for New Year’s Eve rather than Christmas Eve. Jack and Ashi just stared at each other, neither of them having any idea what the significance to standing beneath mistletoe was.

“Lucky bastard!”

“Pucker up, boy!”

“Hey Ashi, wanna trade?”

“What is happening?” Jack asked Ashi, who simply shrugged in confusion.

“KISS HER, YOU FOOL!” The crowd roared in unison.

“Two people caught under the mistletoe have to share a kiss,” Flora clarified. “It’s a Christmas tradition.”

Why do I feel like I have been set up? Jack thought, noticing the Scotsman’s proud smirk. Ashi shyly smiled at him, eager for him to make his move. He returned her smile, wishing he shared her confidence. He leaned in close, blushing brightly as she mimicked him, wanting the feel of his lips against hers. He choked at the last moment and moved to kiss her cheek instead.

The crowd howled in disappointment, booing and even throwing bits of food. “Since when have we become the entertainment?” Jack whispered, blocking Ashi from the flying debris.

“Let’s give the people what they want,” she whispered back, grabbing his face and planting a firm kiss on his lips. The loud cheers that echoed in the hall sounded dull and muffled to Jack, too mesmerized by the sweetness of the kiss. His hands moved to her waist, pulling her close, and shuddering as she moaned into his mouth, digging her hands into the hair on his neck.

“Let’s not get lewd now,” Flora advised, pulling the two apart. “It’s supposed to be short.”

“Ahahahaha!” The Scotsman laughed heartily at his friend’s embarrassment, not stopping even when Jack reclaimed his seat. “Eager much, laddie?”

“Are you quite finished?” Jack pouted, humiliated by everyone acting as if he was a love struck teenager. He was the first to admit that despite his advanced age, he was inexperienced in matters of love and women, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed having it rubbed in his face. Ashi joined the ghost in delightful laughter.                                                                                                                                                                                

“Give me a minute,” he asked, squeezing out a few more guffaws before the laughter faded away. “Okay, Ah’m done.”

“Very amusing.”

The rest of the evening continued with no more acknowledgment of that moment, but Jack couldn’t get it out of his head. Every bite of food or sip of a drink made him wish it was Ashi’s lips, and he often caught himself staring at them, remembering how wonderful they felt and wanting to relive that moment. The party lasted for hours, the sung carols devolving into slurred approximations of words, and more than a few fell asleep in their chairs, out for the night. Jack breathed a sigh of relief when Ashi expressed a desire for sleep, and immediately volunteered to escort her to her room.

“I am sorry you were put on the spot tonight,” Jack said as they navigated the hallways, breaking the beautiful silence after hours of loud raucous laughter and conversation. “I can never keep track of all the traditions and customs around Christmas lore, especially with all the greenery. It was not my intention to put us both beneath that plant, though I suspect it may have been another’s.”

“I think you were more embarrassed then I was,” Ashi laughed, playfully bumping his shoulder.

“A lady’s dignity should always be protected. I did not like the idea of such a personal thing becoming the entertainment of others.”

“I think the idea is to spread love and joy, but I’m glad it was you beneath the mistletoe rather than anyone else,” she admitted, grabbing his hand and squeezing it, giving him a shy smile.

“Me too,” he agreed, not letting go. “I found it quite…agreeable. Something I would not mind repeating.”

Ashi stopped, and Jack panicked. Did he cross a line? Did she only kiss him because social rules demanded it? He opened his mouth to apologize but he was silenced with her lips on his, and it was just as magical as before. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him closer, deepening the kiss, and sending a surge of delight up and down his body. His hands moved to the small of her back, holding her close. All the cold from the drafty hallway disappeared as his skin felt like it was on fire, lost in the beauty and heat of the moment.

“Merry Christmas, Jack,” she whispered against his lips as she broke the kiss, gasping for air. It only stoked his desire for more.

“Merry Christmas, Ashi,” he replied, kissing a trail down her neck, encouraged by the sounds of delight, finer then all of the music played tonight.

“Come on,” she said, and took his hand. Together, they ran down the hallway to her room, quietly giggling like lovesick teenagers as they shut the door behind them.