#squire meets the carls

[squireofgeekdom]

I could finish reading one series and then start reading/rereading another series. Or ... I could do whatever this is.

[fitz-higgins]

LGBT literature of the 1860s–1910s. Part 4

Well, it’s been a while. Here’s a new selection featuring three stories about love between students, lesbian poems, a comedy centered around a gay character, Proust's short story, and more

1. Bertram Cope’s Year, by Henry Blake Fuller (1919). Although this novel went unnoticed by its contemporaries, it is thought to be the first officially published American novel about homosexual men. It could be your perfect academia novel: Bertram, “no squire of dames”, is a self-conscious English teaching assistant at an Illinois university where he completes his thesis and tries to settle in life. Four women and three men are attracted to him, but Bertram is fond of “Dear Arthur”, his college friend Arthur Lemoyne who comes to live with him later. Interestingly, the story has a touch of comic and ironic, which was very rare for homosexual literature of that time. [Read online]

2. Le Monsieur Aux Chrysanthèmes (The Gentleman of Chrysanthemums), by Armory (Carle Dauriac; 1908). This is the first modern play (and a society comedy at that) that has a gay man as its main character. The character is Gill Norvège, a critic and writer, who uses a young widow Marthe Bourdon to get money. Marthe is hopelessly in love with Gill and borrows 30,000 francs from a poet Jacques Romagne, who, in turn, is hopelessly in love with Marthe. And then Gill sees Jacques one day and falls in love with him. [Read online in French or in English]

3. The Garden God: A Tale of Two Boys, by Forrest Reid (1905). Called “a classic of Uranian literature”, this story has it all: homoerotism, platonism, ancient gods and love at boarding school. In that school a fifteen years old Graham, who used to dream of friendship with a Greek god, meets Harold who looks exactly like that imaginary friend. But where there are gods there is also tragedy, so be prepared. [Read online]

4. Poems by Sofia Parnok. Parnok was the first open lesbian in Russian literature. She was in a relationship with another famous Russian poet, Marina Tsvetaeva, as well as with some other women to whom she dedicated a number of poems. Often called the Russian Sappho, she often refers to Sappho in her poetry and also used her famous phrase, “Someone, I tell you, in another time will remember us”. Some of Parnok’s poems are translated and more is available in Russian.

5. Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal (1893). Not the first, but one of the earliest examples of English-language homosexual erotic novels (though rather sophisticated), its author is unknown, but some believe that it was written by Oscar Wilde. Here we have a tragedy again, a tragic love between a Frenchman and a Hungarian pianist, to be exact. There’s also something literally queer going on, because the Frenchman, Des Grieux, has a telepathic connection with the attractive pianist, Teleny. Eventually they meet, and Teleny introduces Des Grieux to the underground homosexual world of Paris. Bonus: the novel has a comic adaptation, Teleny and Camille, by Jay Macy, and also a “prequel”, Des Grieux, written in 1899. [Read online]

6. Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others), by Bill Forster (Hermann Breuer; 1904). The title is supposedly derived from a phrase that was popular among German gay men of that time, “We are, thank god, other than other people”. Herbert, the protagonist, falls in love with Ernst, the boy from his school. They go hiking together, and for some time they are close. But Ernst, although flattered by Herbert’s attention and feelings, rejects him twice, and it destroys Herbert’s life.

7. Avant la nuit (Before dark)by Marcel Proust (1893). A forgotten short story by Proust, written when he was only 22, despite what you might expect, tells about a lesbian woman. She is incredibly unhappy: she is in a relationship with a man, but wants to confess her true sexuality and suffers from her own dishonesty. Finally, she tells him the truth and asks for his compassion. In a way, this story defends homosexuality and explains why it cannot be condemned. [Read online]

8. The Prussian Officer, by D. H. Lawrence (1914). Praised as a masterpiece of short fiction by some critics, this story is rather grim. A captain slowly becomes attracted to his young, simple orderly. However, he represses his feelings and, instead of showing any kind of affection, turns aggressive and humiliates the young man. And it is not going to end well. [Read online]

9. Quelques Portraits-Sonnets de Femmes (Some Portrait-Sonnets of Women), by Natalie Clifford Barney (1900). One of the most famous lesbian poets of the 20th century, Barney wrote a chapbook of love poems to women that were so scandalous her father bought up all remaining copies and burned them. Two novels based on or about women’s affairs with Barney were also featured in previous chapters of this list. The book is not available online, but some poems can be found in English here and here.

10. The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life, by Edward Prime-Stevenson (1906). Prime-Stevenson didn’t just write the first novel about gay men with a happy ending (featured in the previous part of the list), but also an interesting study, one of the earliest ones. Using science and history, he defenses homosexuality, which is why he is considered to be one of the first advocates for the rights of the LGBTQ community. A very progressive work for his time, it rejects the binary of masculine and feminine and insists that homosexuality is a natural result of human evolution. [Read online]

P.s. Previous parts are collected here.

[springvaletales]

((Session 57 is wrapped!))

We met in person bc Bagelby's player called us last-minute and said "hey guys we're in town this week wanna meet up?" and I had absolutely NO time to prepare something special.

It led to the single greatest bit I have ever been a part of I can't even be mad.

The session began with the party settled into a booth at the Pancake Pyramid, squeezed between their stack of demigod-borrowed books and equally tall stacks of pancakes.

IRL, Ena and Sir Carl Jaeger's players made us actual chocolate chip pancakes, which were ravenously devoured.

The party received a Tabaxi Postal Service delivery as they ate, including:

A letter from Michael to Ena, trying to parse out a memory (of Ena's player's choosing) that he thought he could remember.

A duel-letter from Crown Prince Kemat and Princess Maji to Asahi, Kemat's telling her to "keep her wife out of his room" (he found some of the dick crystals), and Maji's asking if she had "done the thing yet" (she hadn't).

A letter to Thiori from Tyr, one of his adopted children, detailing how they were on the run from the guard because Atrodak had gotten caught with alcohol and Orelena and Taco Bako chose to break him out of holding instead of bribing the guard (Thiori is very proud).

A letter to Bagelby from Velenna, asking how his 'spell testing' had going, and that Sonya (his mother) says hello (this letter also included a box of assorted slugs).

A folded up drawing of a goat blowing a raspberry for Lex, signed by a mysterious "V".

A short letter to Sir Carl Jaeger from his 'missing' squire Chessifur, saying that he was alright, and nearby.

There was also a letter addressed to the party from Captain Astaroth, which Asahi opened and read for them, informing them of a Sunfell cult camp that had been reported on the coast nearby and requesting that they meet with his agent to take care of it.

They somehow managed to fit all of their books into their bags with some sweet Tetris checks, paid their tab with actual money (*singing* I wasn't aware that was something they knew how to do~), and headed for the beach.

Astaroth's agent is Koira - an awakened dog wearing half-plate armor. She was my old character from the same campaign Dynamite was a part of.

Koira is very cheerful and easily swayed by head scratches.

The party managed to sneak up on the Sunfell camp (whose combat I threw together in between customers at work on assorted sticky notes), and....did NOT go charging in as expected.

Instead, Bagelby and Lex decided to dress up as their elderly alter-egos, 'Slugmo' and 'Babushka', and pose as simple old people walking their totally normal dog down the beach as a distraction so the rest of the players could sneak in.

Asahi: "Sorry Thiori, we'll try your idea next time." Thiori, sadly putting a sexy red dress back into his bag: "Aww..."

Listen we just riffed until we couldn't breathe from laughing from here on out and I'm only writing these notes the next day so here's just a few snippets that I can still remember clearly.

Koira: "Why didn't you TELL me my mother was a Dalmation?!" Bagelby, as 'Slugmo': "We didn't want it to define your life!"

Bagelby being naked from the waist down because he thought having Koira run around with his pants would help sell their cover story and nobody rolled high enough to argue.

'Slugmo': "We raise you from puppyhood and this is how you repay us?" Koira, tearfully: "You're not my real parents!" 'Babushka', furiously: "How dare you! I birthed you from my own body!"

Sidebar I am so proud of Lex's player she joined us not so long ago having no idea how to handle the 'RP' part of 'TTRPG' and look at her now.

All six cultists rolled - and continued to roll - too low to notice the rest of the party sneaking up on them from the other direction, and wandered out of camp to watch the drama happening on the beach.

Asahi, Sir Carl Jaeger, and Thiori sneaked into the largest tent and found a ton of research equipment and papers.

Asahi swiped all the papers she could find, but they appear to be written in some form of ancient Draconic, which no-one in the party can read.

Sir Carl found a memory stone carefully elevated on a glassware stand, and - despite being intelligent enough to know about memory stones and how they work - grabbed it with his bare hands anyway.

He lived through a brief memory of an unknown child (actually Michael, but Sir Carl hasn't been filled in on that part of the party's pre-him shenanigans yet) traveling with a part of an Orc, an Elf, a Human, and an Owlin. The Owlin ruffled his hair, and then he was back in the tent again.

Asahi used her handkerchief to wrap up the stone, and sarcastically thanked him for not licking it, first.

In the next tent, Sir Carl found a well-loved toy of an owlbear among the jumble of bedrolls and personal affects. Knowing that Ena planned to burn everything to the ground once they left, he took the toy with him.

In the last tent, Thiori found more research papers, and a bunch of sketches from various artists depicting some sort of tower filled with shelves and crystals. He grabbed all of them and gave them to Asahi.

Meanwhile, Ena found a barrel of flammable liquid used for lighting the camp lamps and happily began rolling it all over the site like Bugs Bunny laying a line of cartoon gunpowder.

The cultists have been divided into three camps: A) The dog deserves her freedom!, B) No, she needs to respect her parents!, and C) It's a DOG what is WRONG with you people!

Asahi told Thiori to 'go help with the distraction', as she didn't want to risk Ena getting caught before she had finished her arson set-up, and he whipped out that red dress and had it on before the end of the round.

Thiori, crabwalking out from behind a rock with his claws in the air and his human hands on his hips: "My love, is that you?" 'Slugmo', gasping: "WHO IS THIS WHORE COMING FOR MY DAUGHTER?!" Koira: "FATHER PLEASE I LOVE HIM!"

We had to pause the bit because Asahi's player had an asthma attack from laughing too hard.

The session ended with the rest of the party fleeing down the beach as Ena blew up the camp. Whether the cultists survive or not will depend on how funny I think it will be in a week or so. XD

[hmel78]

In conversation with Keith Emerson ...

Keith Emerson (02.11.44  – 11.03.16)

The Father of progressive rock; the man responsible for the introduction of the Moog synthesiser to the ears of the unsuspecting music lover in the 1960’s; and without a doubt one of the 20th and 21st Centuries (to date) most prolific and talented composers of modern classical music.   In a career spanning 6 decades, which has earned him notability as a pianist and keyboard player, a composer, performer, and conductor of his own music alongside the World’s finest orchestras; as well as achieving super success with “Emerson, Lake, and Palmer” - 2014 has been no less eventful for Keith Emerson! With his 70th Birthday approaching, Helen Robinson caught up with him for a very ‘up-beat’ chat about (amongst other things) the re-releases of his solo records, a brand new album with Greg Lake “Live at Manticore Hall”, his favourite solo works, and his memories of the times spent writing and recording with ‘The Nice’, and ‘ELP’.

HR : This has been a busy year for you so far Keith!   KE : Yes! I’ve been up to allsorts! [laughs]

Music wise – what can I tell you?   Cherry Red , Esoteric, have re-mastered and re-released 3 of my solo albums – “Changing States”,  another which I recorded in the Bahamas called “Honky”, and a compilation of my film scores which consisted of  "Nighthawks”, “Best Revenge”, "Inferno”,  “La Chiesa (The Church)”, "Murderock”, "Harmagedon” and "Godzilla Final Wars”.

HR : That must have been a difficult selection to make based on the number of scores you’ve written! Do you have a particular favourite genre of film to write a score for?

KE : Favourite genre?  Boy, well, I just love film score composition, you know? When I first started I had been touring with ELP for some years, and we’d toured with a full 80 piece orchestra but it was just too expensive – we had to drop the orchestra and continue as a trio, which was very upsetting for me.   I was entranced by what an orchestra could actually do, and found that with doing film music I could work under a commission and have the orchestra paid for by the film company!

It’s always a challenge. I think a lot of composers like to write dramatic music. I like writing romantic music as well – I’ve also written for science fiction where you can let your musical imagination go pretty much where you want, but generally you have to cater specifically to the film. First of all I like to get a good idea of who the producer and director is, and who is likely to be cast as playing the lead roles.  I like to read the script – which helps prior to meeting up with the director and producer. When I wrote the music to Night Hawks I was sent, by Universal films, news of a new film to be made by Sylvester Stallone, a new guy at the time called Rutger Hauer, and Billy Dee Williams, also Lindsay Wagner.   It was basically a terrorist film – not the terrorism that we shockingly see today – but back then it was the beginning of terrorism and was quite mild by today’s standards, however it was still sort of ground breaking as far as writing the score was concerned.  

It’s about vision with film score work.

Although really it’s all about vision with anything you’re writing, and I suppose many of the disagreements that ELP had during their time – of course a lot of it came to wonderful fruition – were not seeing eye to eye because we had such different tastes in music. Ubiquitous I would say – we bounded from one thing to another. Just when you thought it was getting serious we’d want to have some fun and do something light hearted but I’ve always maintained that variation is essential.

I think that’s what helped ELP quite a lot – especially live - in any particular set you had the heavy stuff like “Tarkus” and “Pictures At an Exhibition”, for the guys in the audience, and for the females who attended reluctantly - dragged along by their boyfriend or husbands and just sit there -  I mean, I didn’t sit, I was standing and leaping around [laughs] but you couldn’t help notice the glum looking females in the audience wondering when all this was going to be over.

I think when ELP were together as a unit, we managed to meet everybody’s needs. Greg came up with some really great ballads which sort of got home to the feminine heart, like “From The Beginning” – the feminine heart goes “aaah aint that nice” [laughs] and then suddenly you get the bombardment of something like “Karn Evil 9” and it’s like “Oh GOD”!!

HR : I’d like to talk more about ELP, of course, however there’s so much more outside of that unit , which you have been involved with, that has had quite an influence on modern music.   You’ve got an extraordinary and fairly extensive discography, which we can pick whatever you’d like to talk about, but I’d like to start with ‘The Nice’  -  “Ars Longa Vita Brevis” ...

KE : Ah Yes ‘’Art is long, life is short” - Lee Jackson came up with that title - he’d studied a bit of Latin ... [laughs]

Going back to the 1960’s then – I suppose it was ‘66 when ‘The Nice’ formed – originally as a quartet. Drums, bass, Hammond organ or keyboards, and guitar player.  After the first album we decided to move on as a trio, although I did try to find another guitar player.   I actually auditioned a guy called Steve Howe, who was considering getting together with Jon Anderson, and Chris Squire and forming a band called “Yes”.  Steve was much more interested in getting with the “Yes” guys, so meanwhile ‘The Nice’ continued as a trio with Lee Jackson on bass, Brian Davison on Drums, and myself on Hammond and keys.   It was during this time that I was introduced to a new invention designed by Dr Robert Moog, which became the moog synthesiser, so I was the first to introduce that into live performance.  

With ‘The Nice’ we had come out of an era called the underground / Psychedelia.  

I was very friendly with Frank Zappa and the mothers of invention, and they were really far ahead of their time.

Frank approached me one day, because I was composing and playing with the London orchestras even then, and said ‘’Keith - how do you deal with English orchestras? They’re hopeless!”

And I said ‘’Well, they’re very conservative Frank. If you really want to make it with the London Symphony, or the London Philharmonic - if you really want my advice, I think you should try and change some of the lyrics of your songs. If you’re going to get in front of the London Philharmonic and sing stuff like ‘’Why does it hurt when I pee?’’ obviously these guys are not going to take very kindly to it!” [laughs]

I’d actually done Bachs Brandenburg concerto #3 with a chamber orchestra and had a degree of success in the English charts-  around about the same time ,  Jon Lord  [Deep Purple, Whitesnake] was writing his concerto for orchestra too. I’d already written the “5 bridges suite” which I had recorded with ‘The Nice’ at Fairfield hall in London. So basically Jon Lord and I were kind of both struggling with Orchestras and moving along into what came next musically for the both of us –   Jon was a very good friend.

I think round about the turn of 1970, I had noticed what Steve Howe was doing and it was very harmonic, whereas ‘The Nice’ - well we were a bit more bizarre, and I listen back to it now and I suppose I have a slight bit of embarrassment about how ‘The Nice’ were presenting themselves.

And back then I’d started looking at bands like ‘Yes’, and there were a lot of other bands too, who were really concentrating on the tunes and the vocal element, so that’s when and why I formed ‘Emerson Lake and Palmer’ - in 1970 - and endorsed the whole sound with the moog synthesiser. It sort of took off, and became known as what we know today as “Prog Rock”.  We didn’t have a name for it at that time, we just thought it was contemporary rock. I mean it wasn’t the blues, it wasn’t jazz, but it was a mixture of all of these things, and that’s when we went through.

The first album of ELP, [Emerson, Lake, & Palmer] recorded in 1970; we were still learning how to write together as a unit, so consequently when you listen to it, you’ll hear a lot of instrumentals; mainly because there were no lyrics and there was a pressure on the band to get an album out. For some reason there was an extreme interest in the band - We were to be considered as the next super group after ‘Crosby Stills & Nash’, which we certainly didn’t like the idea of.   That album went very well.   Unfortunately the record company decided to release “Lucky Man” - which was a last minute thought – as a single, and it took off. My concern was the fact that, OK yeah the ending has the big moog sweeps and everything like that going on – but how on earth  do we do all the vocals live? Thousands of vocal overdubs over the top and neither Carl nor I sang.   You know - I sing so bad that a lot of people refuse to even read my lips!   And as far as Carl Palmer was concerned he had “Athletes Voice” and people just ran away when he sang! It was a hopeless task of actually being able to recreate “Lucky Man” on stage, so eventually Greg just did it as an acoustic guitar solo.   It was that one sort of Oasis, in a storm of very macho guy stuff, where the women just went [in a girly voice] “Oh I like that, that’s nice”.  [laughs]

So, inspired by that we got more grandiose and put out ‘’Pictures At An Exhibition” – another bombastic piece based upon Mussorgsky’s epic work. For some reason Greg wanted it released at a reduced price because he said it wasn’t the right direction for ELP to go. So we released it for about £1 and it went straight to number 1!  Then the record company called up and said ‘’what are you doing? This is a hit record and you’re just selling it for £1??!!’’, so I said ‘’well yeah it’s a bit stupid isn’t it?” – so when it was released in America it was at its full price and ended up nominated for a Grammy award! ELP had a lot to do to create the piece you know?   We disagreed on lots of issues but in order to keep the ball rolling we just moved on with the next one, which was in fact “Trilogy”.

I thought it was about this time in ELPs life that we had learned how to tolerate each other, how to write together, and how to be very constructive. “Trilogy” is a complete mish-mash, you go from one thing to another; there’s a Bolero, and then ‘Sherriff’ – which is kind of western bar jangly piano playing on it.   I don’t think you could find such a complete diversity buying a record like that these days. We were very much inspired by our audience accepting that.  

Actually Sony Records are going to re release it in 5.1 – they’re doing a wonderful package with out-takes and everything – I’ve just competed doing the liner notes.

We moved on again then, and started the makings of “Brain Salad Surgery” which was a step further.  

After that I worked on my piano concerto played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and actually it’s still being performed all over the world - Australia, Poland, and in October I’m going to East Coast America to do some conducting – Jeffrey Beagle, who’s a great classical pianist, is going to perform it then, and I’m going to perform some other new works of mine.  

HR : Are you likely to release a recording of it?

KE : Yes I guess it might be ... I’ll let you know. It’s a dauntless compelling challenge. I have conducted and played with orchestras before and I’m very thankful to have classical guys around me who are able to point me in the right direction.   I was never classically trained. I started off playing by ear and then having private piano lessons, and then basically teaching myself how to orchestrate. I’m still taking lessons in conducting and I don’t think I’ll ever get to the standard of the greats like Dudamel or Bernstein – I don’t think I’ll ever be able to conduct Wagner, but so long as I’ve written the piece of music I think I’ve got an idea of roughly how it goes!  [laughs] Thankfully I’ve worked with Orchestras who are very kind to me.

HR : Do you enjoy the performance as much as the writing?

KE : Actually I enjoy the writing more than the performance. I know I wrote an Autobiography called ‘’Pictures Of An Exhibitionist” but that’s the last thing that I am really.   I’m pretty much a recluse. I’ve got my Norton 850 and I’m happy ...

HR : I was going to ask you about the Theatrics on stage – Why Knives and swords? Was there something which influenced the decision to include that as a part of your performance, or was it purely born out of frustration from working with Carl and Greg?

KE : [laughs]  Well you see in the 60s, I toured with bands like The Who, and I watched Pete Townshend; I toured with Jimi Hendrix too, and I thought that if the piano is going to take off then the best thing to do is like really learn to become a great piano or and keyboard player, but I also thought “that aint gonna last with a Rock audience in a Rock situation”, mainly because the piano or Hammond organ  - well from the audience you look up on stage and it’s just a piece of furniture! Whereas the guitar player can come on stage and he’s got this thing strapped around his neck, he can wander up and down the sage, check out the chicks, and he’s the guy that has all the fun.   The organ player meanwhile is just seated there at a piece of furniture like he’s sat at a table.   So a lot of what I did was for the excitement of it, and I suppose to exemplify the fact that I could play it back to front. A lot of my comic heroes like Victor Borg, Dudley Moore – they all came into the whole issue too.

I’ll tell you this ok? I once went to see a band at the Marquee club when it was in Wardour Street in London, and I can’t remember this guys name now, but he played Hammond organ - he was a very narky looking fellow, and went on stage wearing a schoolboys outfit which caused a lot of the girls in the audience to chuckle.   I stood at the back of the Marquee club and watched his performance - a lot of the stops and things were falling off his organ, so he had a screwdriver to keep holding certain keys down, and then suddenly the back of his Hammond fell off – and I don’t think it was intentional, because he looked really quite distraught, but he caused so much laughter from the audience. I went away thinking “there is something there, I’m going to use that” ... I actually thought it would be a great idea to stick a knife into the organ, rather than a screw driver -the reason for this was to hold down a 4th and a 5th , or maybe any 5th, or say a ‘C’ and an ‘F’ or a ‘G’, whatever, and then be able to go off stage, take the power off the Hammond, so that it would just die away -  it would go ‘’whoooaaaaaaaoooooh’’; and  then I’d plug it back in and it would  power back up and create like the noise of an air-raid siren, and of course the drummer and bass player would react to that.  It got really interesting. We actually had a road manager at the time by the name of ‘’Lemmy’’ who went on to be with Motorhead.   He gave me 2 Hitler Youth Daggers and said [best Lemmy impression] “here! If you’re going to use a knife, use a real one!”

So that was the start of all that, and people loved it, and actually Hendrix loved it too –  somewhere in his archive collection there must be some footage of me almost throwing a knife at him [laughs] .

The phase for it was my objection to the 3 assassinations they had in the USA -  JFK, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King -   I’d been to America once and seen how quick the Police were to pull out their guns to a woman parking her car illegally – so bizarre.  The 2nd amendment will not go away, as much as they want it to. I’ll reserve further comments on that but that was really the whole objective. I was banned from the Albert Hall for burning a painting of the Stars and Stripes, which took some time to get over, but everything worked and they allowed me live in California now. [laughs]

HR : What about the Manticore Hall show, also released this year, presumably you kept burning paintings off the agenda there? Was it good to work with Greg again? and then the complete ELP line up with Carl at High Voltage?

KE : No! [laughs], and Yes ... Actually that was recorded in 2010 and was an idea set up by a manager associate of mine, and an agent in California. I met up with them and they asked how I felt about doing a Duo tour to lead up to the High Voltage Festival in London.   They convinced me that it was a big festival ... and the idea was to have ELP on the Sunday night there. So the lead up was a duo tour with myself and Greg because Carl was off with Asia at the time.   It had its ups and downs, but it did eventually work very well and it was a very good warm up to doing that Festival date as the 3 of us.   I don’t think there was any intention of us going any further with it. I think the resulting “ELP at High Voltage” was good and also I think the album ‘’Live At Manticore Hall’’ - although it wasn’t released until this year, because Greg initially didn’t want it to be released at all - is good stuff too.   These things happen with bands, it takes a while for us to appreciate how good what we do is, sometimes.

HR : You’d had quite a break from ELP at that point, KE : [interrupts] I wouldn’t say that I ever take a break, if I can put it so lightly, and it’s not lightly, as to say that it’s kind of like a hobby – if I feel so inclined I will go to the piano and will write a piece of music. If that piece of music seems to warrant being augmented by anyone then I find the right people to do it.  I had a great experience last year of going to Japan and hearing the Tokyo Philharmonic play the whole of “Tarkus” – a 90 piece orchestra – I’ve never been so blown away. I worked with a Japanese arranger on the orchestration, and actually used it on an album which I recorded with Marc Bonilla, and Terje Mikkelsen called “Three Fates Project”,  which actually didn’t make it anywhere and I don’t know why. It’s a great album, very orchestral – I did the version of “Tarkus” on that complete with the Munich symphony orchestra. I changed it around slightly – I had Irish fiddle players coming in – I suppose, really you could refer to it as being World Music – it’s probably a great example of that.   It’s not based upon the ELP solo piano composition that we did on ELPs first album. I don’t think the record companies knew how to market it you know? Was it classical? was it rock? It has the complete amalgamation of group and orchestra. Wonderfully recorded. It really is quite mind blowing. Not that I want to blow my own trumpet!   Maybe if the art work had been a little more dynamic then it would have caught people’s attention. I agreed on it, but you see our names and they’re really small - I don’t think people realised who’s album it was.

HR : Have you any plans to perform it in the UK, or other parts of Europe? Scandanavia, for Blackmoon fans? Any tour plans at all?

KE : The thing is, first of all, that the direction that I am going at the moment is very orchestral. And that does take an awful lot of planning. As I say I’m going to play with the South Shore Symphony on the East Coast of America, but touring with an orchestra, as I learnt back in the late 70s with ELP, is very expensive.  It doesn’t make any money if I’m perfectly honest. If someone was to come up with the cost of shipping the instruments about then ...  but it’s not like dishing out the orchestral charts to an orchestra and then have The Moody Blues come on and play, and the strings do all the backing stuff, you know! This music is the music which I’ve written and really demands quite a lot of practicing.

For instance when I was recording “Three Fates” with the Munich Symphony, in Munich, I was interviewed during the break after the first day by a radio station, and they asked ‘’how do you think its going?’’ and I said “well if the orchestra are still here with me in 5 days time, I should be very surprised” [laughs] .   I remember on about the 4th day , one of the members of the orchestra had obviously heard the radio broadcast.   As and I walked out into the garden at break time, I passed one of the Trombonists who was smoking a cigarette and he said ‘’well we’re still here”...

There is an awful lot that can go wrong, of course, especially with orchestras. The copyist can sometimes write a b natural rather than a b flat, or they can get a whole load of other things wrong – and that’s what happened this particular recording.  

Marc Bonilla actually came up to me on a break and said “I think you should go up to the control room, and look at the score mate, something doesn’t sound right”, so you can imagine the look on my face! So off I go I’m up in the control room; radio through to the rehearsal room and start going through the score and sure enough it was wrong. I don’t know why I hadn’t heard that before, but it was down to the copyists – its the same with writing a book and you give it away to the editor – they can still mess it up – as copyists do with music. And sometimes you’ll get the orchestra, and they’ll just play what’s written rather than put their hands up and say “that doesn’t sound right”, for fear of retribution I suppose – so it is frustrating, but it’s very rewarding.

The Mourning Sun, taken from “Three Fates” 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PcOI8nDDeU

It’s been quite funny with some of these albums that Cherry Red are rereleasing. I happened to give one to my eldest son. I gave him ‘’Honky’’ and he came up to me and he said ‘’here Dad I’ve been listening to the Honky album and it’s really really good!’’  He and his friends are in their 40s now and they’ve all complimented me on it, so that’s the biggest compliment I could have really.

I was recording that album when he was about 4 years old. [laughs]

HR : Is that your favourite then? Honky?

KE : Oh yeah – I had so much fun making that album and I think it shows in it’s humour. It was great. The objective behind it was that I wanted to record with all the local bohemian people - I was living at the time in Nassau in the Bahamas. I didn’t really experience a lot of problems with the black bohemians –  I got on great with them all. There were some great musicians, and I wanted to do a very ethnic album to bring to the attention of the world that we can all get on! I used to drive around Nassau in a limited edition Jeep and kids would run out and yell at me ‘’Honky!’’ and I’d wave thinking ‘that’s kind of fun’.  Then, when I worked in the studio I noticed that the black musicians would all greet themselves with the ‘’N’’ word – we can’t say that now - says in an accent “Yo N ...” – so I thought ‘well if they can do that I am going to call myself a Honky!’ And they were horrified!!  [laughs] So I bluntly spoke to them and I said “listen you guys call yourselves ‘’Ns’’ so I’m calling myself a Honky, and damn it I’m going to call the album that too!” [laughs].  It was a lot of fun.

*** Honky - a derogatory term for a Caucasian person.

HR : We must get something down about Blackmoon – given that this is the title of the Magazine!

KE : [laughs] ELP, Blackmoon.  *sighs* Well  ... I remember from this time that Carl Palmer and myself wanted to have a different producer.

It was all well and good that Greg produced all the other albums but – I don’t think it’s a very good idea for any band ; if they’re involved in the writing and the playing, and then one band member decides he’s going to be a producer too.   You need someone objective to come in and say that they think it’s too long, or whatever ... whereas if you have a part in writing and playing, its obvious that you’re going to pay more attention to it, and Carl and myself really wanted an objective opinion about how to make it work. The producers that we auditioned were very familiar with ELPs work and were really considerate in how they constructed it.  The main consideration - and I think really it was a difficult time because Greg could see that his role as being a former producer of ELP was going to be taken away from him. Whereas for me I felt that Greg’s attention should be more on the writing and the lyrics and other aspects. There is so much that one had to pay attention to when running a band. There are the legal, accounting, and everything else – and above all you have the creative aspect and you really cannot go into a studio and become the producer and wear all these different hats. It doesn’t work, I don’t allow that even on my own music writing.  I’m quite happy to go in and play my music as long as I trust that the guy behind the music desk, and the mixing desk,  are on the same page, know who I am, and what I’ve done before – so at least there is a rapport where the engineer can see what you are trying to do and he will say – “ah you know what, why don’t we try and go for that you did on Trilogy - lets try it!” You have to work with people who understand you and then you can just sit back and work on it , accept a good idea, be pushed to your limits. The thing is with Greg - he felt that he had been removed from the situation which he had most power and pride in. Whereas I think most pride he should keep as the fact that he s a damn good singer and has written some great music. If you want a great team you have to designate to the right person.

That’s why I had Lemmy as my roadie.  If I hadn’t had Lemmy the knives wouldn’t have come out [laughs]. We owe Lemmy a lot! HR : Absolutely.  You two should record a duet!   Which Instrument would you choose? Moog, Melotron, Hammond?

KE : Hmmmmmmmm.  Piano. I’ve always written on the piano. I do have a mandolin hanging on the wall here, which is out of tune at the moment. You wouldn’t want to hear me play this mandolin ...

HR : Because it’s out of tune, or just in general?

KE : [laughs] because it’s out of tune but even if it was in tune I don’t know if it would work. It looks great hanging on the wall though ...

© Helen Robinson -  June 2015 Originally published in Blackmoon Magazine.

[Keith and I were great pals - I miss him <3]

[aion-rsa]

Scary Christmas Stories: A History of the Holiday’s Ghostly Tradition

https://ift.tt/2LtOQF3

“It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story” – Jerome K. Jerome, 1891

In the English countryside, dinner had ended, and the company retired to the drawing room. They gathered around the fire as the parson, who sat in a high-backed oak chair, proceeded to tell of goblins and ghosts. The squire, not a superstitious man himself, listened intently  as the parson spoke about the crusader who rose from his tomb for a nighttime ride. The old porter’s wife added to the tale with her own of the crusader’s march on Midsummer Eve, when fairies became visible.

Such was Christmas Night at Bracebridge Hall, England, in 1820.

The story set in the fictional manor was written by American author Washington Irving, and published in 1820 in the fifth installment of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. This was less than three months before the world was introduced to the Headless Horseman in “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” prior to the start of the Victorian era – and when Charles Dickens was only seven years old.

Twenty-three years before Ebenezer Scrooge changed his ways on the holiday in 1843, and 143 years before Andy Williams first sang about the most wonderful time of the year in 1963, Christmas had already been established as the season for telling scary ghost stories.

Irving’s English countryside story reminded readers of the idea of the paranormal and Christmas connection, but he didn’t invent it by a long shot.

Before it was “Christmas,” it was midwinter, solstice, Saturnalia, Sol Invictus, and Yule. It was the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It represented death, and rebirth, and was a time when the veil between worlds was thin. And it took place around December 21. 

Prior to the emergence of what we know as the seasonal mascot Santa Claus, there was Sinterklass, and Saint Nicholas before him. There was the long-bearded Odin who would lead a band of hunters, or fairies, or armies of the dead across the sky during Yuletide on the Wild Hunt of Old Norse and Germanic Pagan beliefs. And much like Odin, and solstice, were appropriated, or enveloped, into Christmas, so were seasonal pagan songs turned into carols.

As Christianity spread, folklore incorporated the supernatural with the religious holiday. The anti-Claus Krampus is possibly from a pre-Christian era, but the beast of Germanic and Eastern European origins became a counterpart to St. Nick, and appeared as a hairy goat-like demon with horns and cloven hooves. Written in the 9th-11th century, the Sagas of the Icelanders has some pretty heavy duty spectral action during the season, including revenants. And the underworld race of goblins known as kallikantzaroi emerged in Southeastern Europe in (approximately) late 14th Century with a mission to wreak havoc during the 12 Days of Christmas.

The idea of paranormal stories told during the winter had already been documented in fiction by 1589, when Christopher Marlowe wrote of the season’s tales of “spirits and ghosts” in The Jew of Malta. Shakespeare shortly thereafter wrote of a sad story best for winter, “of sprites and goblins” in 1623’s The Winter’s Tale — nearly two decades ahead of Oliver Cromwell banning, or trying to, Christmas celebrations in 1644 during the English Civil War.

Meanwhile, in the colonies, the Puritans rejected the pagan trappings and revelries of Christmas. Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas, writes that from 1659 to 1681, Massachusetts made public celebrations of the holiday a criminal offense carrying a fine. Notably, Captain John Smith of Jamestown celebrated the holiday in 1607, but festivities in America weren’t widespread. Christmas wasn’t even a national holiday until 1870.

By the time Irving came to write of English Christmas traditions, which also involved “mumming” and hanging mistletoe, it was a romanticized notion, and not likely being observed with much fanfare outside the countryside. In the industrial areas, December 25 was just another day of work.

But Irving’s story nonetheless connected with Charles Dickens. In his book Dickens, Peter Ackroyd writes the author had lived an idyllic life in the country until that happy existence abruptly ended, and his father was sent to a debtor’s prison when young Charles was just 12. So Irving’s Bracebridge — a setting familiar to Dickens, and based on the real-life Watt Family at Astor Hall — must have stirred up nostalgia for his childhood lost.

Read more

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In time, Dickens and Irving became friends, and the former credited the American author with influencing his own Christmas writings. A Christmas Carol, in Prose: Being a Ghost Story of Christmas was published December 19, 1843, but Dickens’ previous work The Pickwick Papers had already included a story about a Christmas Eve with ghost stories, reminiscent of Irving’s “Old Christmas.” He likewise introduced a proto-Scrooge in “The Story of the Goblins Who Stole A Sexton” in 1836 as a chapter of Pickwick.

Interestingly, from a paranormal perspective, Dickens’ “ghosts” in Carol are more inhuman entities than traditional spirits of those who have passed. Christmas Past is described as an “it” with a bright flame atop its head; Present is described as quite large with a wreath of holly and icicles; Christmas Yet to Come is the Grim Reaper-esque figure in a black shroud without a discernible face and body. The ghost of Marley is a familiar sort of ghost, though trapped in chains, returning when the veil is thin much like the old pagan tales suggested.

If Irving’s successful Sketch Book reminded English readers of the ghost story tradition, it was Dickens’ blockbuster hit that made it mainstream. Like any good creator, he gave the audience more, and wrote four additional Christmas books, and several essays on the topic – many of which involved supernatural elements, and promoted Dickens’ “Carol Philosophy” and themes of generosity.

After Jesus and Santa, Dickens gets a lot of well-deserved credit for how we celebrate Christmas. He helped remind the urban English population of the good ol’ days of Christmases of yore, and popularized the holiday as a secular charitable observance (and he coined the phrase “Merry Christmas”).

Though Dickens didn’t create the idea of Christmas ghost stories, he helped make it quintessentially British. Victorian magazines and newspapers took to publishing these themed stories for holiday fireside reading, and readers ate it up. Not surprisingly, other authors wanted in on the trend, even if they didn’t echo the Carol Philosophy.

Elizabeth Gaskell contributed the ghost yarn “The Old Nurse’s Story” to Dickens’ 1852 collection, A Round of Stories by the Christmas Fire. The list goes on: John Burwick Harwood’s “Horror: A True Tale” (1861); Ada Buisson’s “The Ghost’s Summons” (1868); Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Markheim” (1885). Even American Edgar Allan Poe set his 1845 poem “The Raven” in “bleak December,” and American ex-pat Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw (1898) begins on Christmas Eve.

By 1891, English humorist Jerome K. Jerome commented on the popular tradition in Told After Supper:

“It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story. Christmas Eve is the ghosts’ great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fete. On Christmas Eve everybody in Ghostland who IS anybody…comes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and display their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other… Whenever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.”

This popularity of ghost stories in Christmas was aided by the fascination with the paranormal, and the rise of Spiritualism in the Victorian and Edwardian eras. As seances and the use of spirit boards became more vogue, so did the holiday trend. When the religious movement faded from the spotlight in the 1920s, the ghost story tradition stuck around even if the English slightly cooled on it during the early-to-mid war-torn 20th century.

M.R. James, the medieval scholar, and one of the best ghost story writers ever, took to telling fireside tales of the supernatural while he served as Provost at Eton College from 1918-1936. In North America, Canadian novelist Robertson Davies would do the same at Massey College, according to bibliographers Carl Spadoni, and Judith Skelton Grant. Meanwhile, American horror author (and racist) H.P. Lovecraft set his 1925 Necronomicon story “The Festival” during Christmastime.

Anecdotally, it seems Halloween now dominates when it comes to the season of the ghost, even in the United Kingdom. But the Christmas tradition has not entirely faded. The 1970s BBC special A Ghost Story for Christmas has returned in recent years, and The Guardian published five such stories over the course of as many days in 2013.  

Contrary to the “scary ghost stories” lyric of classic American Christmas carol “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” the U.S. didn’t take to the Christmas ghost story in the same way our British cousins did in the late 19th century  (which makes it especially peculiar the song was written by two New York City kids, Edward Pola and George Wyle, and sung by Iowa’s own Andy Williams).

Rather, Christmas in America became especially defined by the jolly (but also supernatural) Santa Claus character presented in the 1931 Coca-Cola advertisement, painted by Haddon Sundblom, and inspired by Clement Clark Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” aka “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The folklore of Christmas in America in the early 20th Century was candy cane sweet. Lacking was the ominous spookiness that reminds us to seek the light.

(The indigenous peoples of North America also celebrated solstice, such as with the Iroquois Haudeshaune; the Passamaquoddy tribe’s belief that frost giants returned north during this time; the general idea across different native nations that this time is a celebration of light returning to turtle island (Earth). These traditions were never incorporated into American culture, and were instead purged by colonization.)

Still, America has gradually been making up for its absence of Christmas ghosts and goblins. The angelic 1946 film It’s a Wonderful Life, directed by Frank Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart, espouses enough of the Carol Philosophy of goodwill to make Dickens proud. In Dr. Seuss’ 1957 book, and 1966 animated special, How The Grinch Stole Christmas, the creature on Mount Crumpit is a modern-day Krampus. Rod Serling toyed, somewhat literally in one case, with the notion of magic and ghosts in his 1960-62 Christmas episodes of The Twilight Zone (“Night of the Meek,” “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” and “Changing of the Guard”).

These days the holiday horror subgenre of film has channeled the scary nature of Victorian tales. Santa -as-slasher is well-tread territory thanks in large part to 1974’s Black Christmas, directed by Bob Clark (who also co-wrote and directed A Christmas Story).  More than ghosts, the monsters of Christmas in American cinema has included Gremlins, Krampus, Jack Frost, Gingerdead Man, and the zombies of Anna and the Apocalypse. And the “real” Santa and his creepy elves themselves become the monsters in the Finnish film Rare Exports.

But perhaps with the exception of A Nightmare Before Christmas, and some of the more effective adaptations of A Christmas Carol, such as Scrooged, the sentimentality of Irving and Dickens is mostly absent from modern holiday tales of the supernatural. Yet they certainly bring us right back to the monsters and undead of the pagan tales.

However, with the seemingly nonstop demand for “content” across streaming platforms — and the seasonal English tradition gaining fresh attention on media outlets — we might be on the threshold of a new age of December-set stories populated with spirits and goblins.

Perhaps once more in the near future, every Christmas Eve will be a great gala night for ghosts.

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The post Scary Christmas Stories: A History of the Holiday’s Ghostly Tradition appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/3h5gpAy

[religiousshitbaby]

⚔ - DUEL , ♥ - STAKED and ☢ - BIOHAZARD - ^.^

All in Fallout Verse

⚔ - DUEL - a meeting or relationship that was important to them

Probably Doctor Jones. A doctor in the BoS whose been teaching Carl about medicine. He doesn’t have many friends and fewer mentor and he considers the doctor both

♥ - STAKED - a jarring event, something that changed their life/outlook

When he was 12 and a squire with the Brotherhood he accompanied his mother on a patrol. It was suppose to be safe and good training for him but something went wrong They were attacked by Super mutants and he lost his arm. No one else survived the attack. His mother’s body was never found.

☢ - BIOHAZARD - the most dangerous thing about them to others

Carl is treated like a danger. True he is clumsy at times and has terrible luck, but he means well and unless you attack him first he probably won’t attack at all.

[newyorktheater]

Watch the hour-long video of 11 short new plays below.

In “Holla,” a serial killer (Will Swenson) wearing the  distorted white mask from the Scream series, makes an ominous phone call to Chris (Chris Herbie Holland) an unsuspecting Black teenager, intending to scare him to death. But the conversation takes an unexpected turn.

“What’s your favorite scary movie, Chris?” the deep-voiced killer asks, accompanied by spooky music.

“Fruitvale Station,” Chris replies, referring to the movie based on the real-life police killing of Oscar Grant.

“I meant scary, scary…” That movie “might be scarier for…” — he hesitates – “certain people.”

Chris calls him a racist. The killer gets defensive. “I wasn’t going to kill you because you’re black…I think it’s important to kill all people..”

The four-minute play by Lee Edward Colston II – funny, pointed — is the first of the 11 new short works in #WhileWeBreathe, subtitled “A Night of Creative Protest,” which grew out of conversations the week after the police killing of George Floyd. It debuted this week, and will remain online.

“Holla” is something of an outlier in #WhileWeBreathe. More representative is

Azure D Osborne-Lee’s “Sundown Support.” In it, Kevin R. Free portrays the leader of a support group “for survivors of racial terror,” where we hear some horror stories of police abuse.

One can argue that the entire enterprise functions in some ways as a support group.

That’s been my reaction to most of the anthology productions that have proliferated since the start of the pandemic. They seem to exist on three levels.

They are in effect support groups for the theater artists involved – ways for them to stay busy, feel useful, express themselves, and stay engaged with their community (These are generally not paying gigs.)   Almost all of these productions are also, crucially, fundraisers, most for organizations meeting urgent needs.  #WhileWeBreathe is a fundraiser for NAACP Legal Defense Fund, The Bail Project, Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity, BYP 100, Forced Trajectory Project, Justice Committee (JC), and Southerners on New Ground (SONG).

And then, on a third level, these group efforts are also gifts for theatergoers – stories or works of art or entertainments (call them what feels apt), often offered at minimal or no charge.  Put together with great passion and great speed, these shows seem to put such a priority on community that, one suspects, nobody is excluded and nothing is edited.

Since the participants are talented professionals at the top of their game, these anthologies have felt to me not so much uneven as overwhelming.

In several of the plays in #WhileWeBreathe,  a character expresses his or her anger and/or confusion in what initially sounds like a rant but turns into something powerful and lyrical.  In Liza Jessie Peterson’s “Do You Really Want To Know?,” for example, Michele Shay portrays a woman asked via text by her family how she’s doing, and she decides to tell them: “Some days I’m just paralyzed with rage. It all comes in waves. I can’t think about George Floyd without thinking about Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery….” Photographs of the victims slowly cover the video as she mentions their names, blotting her out.In Khari Wyatt’s “Mister,” Ty Jones tells his character’s story of heartache hardship, with a payoff that emphasizes the importance of dignity.

Two of the plays present the twin urgencies of protest and pandemic as a conflict: In Steve Harper’s “Three People,” a brother who is a medical professional (Keith Eric Chappelle) argues with his sister (Birgundi Baker) that she should stay home and stay healthy rather than march in the streets; in Arvind Ethan David’s “Pre-existing Condition,” a single character (Neil Brown Jr.) debates the same dilemma within himself.  “The arc of history may bend towards justice and this may be our moment to pull it a little closer, but the arc of a pandemic only knows one thing – exponential growth’’

In two other plays, we hear from characters who turn out to be dead; both dramas are probably more affecting if you don’t realize right away that you’re hearing from murder victims, so I won’t name them.

#WhileWeBreathe ends with Aurin Squire’s “Mississippi Goddamn,” which is the longest play (at about ten minutes) and feels like the most developed. Lynn Whitfield and Esau Pritchett play an older couple who live through five days of the current crisis, recalling a lifetime of tragedy, including the circumstances in which Nina Simone wrote “Mississippi Goddamn.”  Their relationship is touching and subtly amusing, their recollections deeply sad, their attitude evolves into…hopeful?

#WhileWeBreathe is dedicated to Rev C.T. Vivian and Rep. John Lewis, towering figures of the civil rights movement, both of whom died on July 17 of this year. “We follow you into good trouble.”

THE CAST:

Birgundi Baker (“The Chi,” “Heathers”), Vanessa Bell Calloway (Coming to America, Letters from Zora), Bryan Terrell Clark (Hamilton, “When They See Us”), Neil Brown Jr. (“Insecure,” “SEAL Team”), Keith Eric Chappelle (“Billions,” Cyrano), Kevin R. Free (Dave, Eighth Grade), Alfie Fuller (BLKS, Is God Is), Marcus Henderson (Get Out, “Tacoma FD”), Chris Herbie Holland (What’s in a Name?, The Cancer Patient), Ty Jones (The Great Society, The Blacks: A Clown Show), Patina Miller (Pippin, “Madam Secretary”), Lori Elizabeth Parquet (Dispatches from (A)mended America, Rizing), Esau Pritchett (“Iron Fist,” “Prodigal Son”), Obie and Outer Critic’s Circle Award winner Michele Shay (Seven Guitars, Meetings), Hailey Stone (Matters of Chance, Nasir), Will Swenson (Jerry Springer: The Opera, Hair), TL Thompson (Is This A Room, Straight White Men), and Lynn Whitfield (“Greenleaf,” The Josephine Baker Story).

WRITTEN BY:

Lee Edward Colston II (The First Deep Breath, “For Life”), Arvind Ethan David (“Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”), Cheryl L. Davis (The Bones of Giants, “Law & Order: SVU”), Nathan Alan Davis (Nat Turner in Jerusalem, “Sorry For Your Loss”), Steve Harper (“God Friended Me,” “American Crime”), Azure D. Osborne-Lee (Mirrors, Glass), Liza Jessie Peterson (The Peculiar Patriot, Bamboozled), Bianca Sams (At The Rivers End, “Charmed”), Keenan Scott II (Thoughts of a Colored Man, “A Luv Tale”), Aurin Squire (Fire Season, “Good Fight”), and Khari Wyatt (Stomping Down at Sugar’s Love, “Africana!”).

DIRECTED BY:

Steve H. Broadnax III (The Hot Wing King, The Hip Hop Project), Carl Cofield (The Bacchae, Antigone), Bianca LaVerne Jones (Armed, FEAST), Patricia McGregor (Lights Out, Nat King Cole The Public’s Hamlet), Pratibha Parmar (Nina’s Heavenly Delights, Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth), Charles Randolph-Wright (Motown: The Musical on Broadway, TV: OWN’s “Greenleaf”), Kirya Traber (Both My Grandfathers, Permitted), and Tamara Tunie (“Law & Order: SVU,” Flight).

CASTING BY: Venus Kanani, CSA and Stewart/Whitley

EDITED: AJ Francois, Aimee Jennings, Aric Lewis

Watch #WhileWeBreathe anthology and read my review Watch the hour-long video of 11 short new plays below. In “Holla,” a serial killer (Will Swenson) wearing the  distorted white mask from the Scream series, makes an ominous phone call to Chris (Chris Herbie Holland) an unsuspecting Black teenager, intending to scare him to death.

[riotactquotes]

The Parliamentary History of England, 1817

Page 1439: They proceeded immediately to the New Meeting, and destroyed it, the justices not at all interfering to prevent them. While they were engaged in its destruction, both the magistrates were seen in the streets, at no great distance; and at one time, justice Carles said to a number of persons riotously assembled round them. “Do not do any other mischief than pulling down the meetings, and I will stand your friend, as far as lies in my power.” And about this time, after justice Carles had concluded a speech to the mob, with shouting, “Church and King forever,” one of them, who stood near to the magistrates, cried out, “Damn it! what is the meaning of Church and King?” To which another replied, “ Blast your eyes! to burn all the meetings to be sure.” These expressions show the spirit that actuate the persons then assembled, but the magistrates turn away, and took no notice of them; and it cannot be wonder at, that the New Meeting was immediately afterwards in flames. The mob having finished their business, thy want next to the old meting, which thy also destroyed, in presence of one at least of the magistrate, who, so far from reading the Riot Act, or making any attempt to quell the tumult, said, “he was very glad they did not attempt to meddle with private property.” In this state of confusion was the town, when the magistrate, at a very late hour, thought proper to quit it, and retire to their own house at some distance, thinking perhaps, that the mob would be satisfied with the demolishing of one or two meetings, and disperse. That however, was not the nature of mobs. The appetite for devastation it was not in the power of man to gorge — “There best where ravin most prevails, To stuff that maw, that vast unhidebound corpse.”

The next time that either of the magistrate appeared, was at Dr. Priestley’s house. Dr. Spencer was present while the rioters were engaged in the demolition of that House; and instead of reading the Riot Act, or taking any step to disperse them, he called several of them to him, and made them huzza, and join with him in the shout of “Church and King;” he then said, “you have done very well what you have done; don’t hurt the house; it does not belong to Dr. Priestley; it belongs to Mr. Lloyd, a Quaker, a gentleman respected by all that know him.” One of the mob said, it belonged to squire Taylor; another said, it belonged to somebody else: but several cried out, that “it belonged to the Presbyterians, and it shall come down!” Dr. Spencer then retired, and when he was departing, said, “Take care and do not hurt one another.” The mob huzzaed; followed him to the gate that led into the turnpike road, and then returned to the house, which they demolished and burnt.

Page 1444: Mr. Whitbread, in order to show that he was calling upon the House to do nothing new in taking cognizance of the misconduct of the magistrates on the present occasion, stated various precedents of cases, in which they had been prosecuted or punished for neglect of duty, in not suppressing riots. He mentioned particularly the address of that House presented in 1715, on the subject of the Staffordshire riots, praying George 1st to give orders that the magistrates should be struck out of the commission of the peace; and he was pleased graciously to comply with their request; the case of a magistrate in Devonshire, against whom sir Dudley Ryder, when attorney general, had filed an information for not reading the proclamation in the Riot Act to rioters plundering a wreck; and that of sir Brackley Kennett, in our own time, who was prosecuted for not exerting himself for suppression of the riots in 1780, during his mayoralty; was tried, convicted, and brought up for judgment in the court of King’s bench; but at the recommendation of the lord chief justice Mansfield, his sentence was postponed and shortly afterwards he died without anything having been passed upon him.

Page 1445: He took notice of the petition for compensation of damages, which had been offered to be presented on that day, which rendered it unnecessary for him, for the present, to say anything on the subject. He hoped it would meet with due attention from his majesty’s ministers. It was highly necessary it should do so; for though the dissenters had recovered 37,000l. in the courts of law, yet, if the whole amount of their demands was complied with, they would still be great sufferers. — Upon coming into the House that evening, he had heard, that even since the notice of his present motion, another riot had taken place at Birmingham; and the magistrates had refused to act, or read the proclamation in the Riot Act. If that were true, the necessity came pressing indeed upon him to urge the House to take cognizance of their conduct.

[trekspertise]

Trekspertise 3.3 - “The Rise Of Toxic Fandom: A Theory” Bibliography

Writers - Kyle Sullivan & Katie Boyer

Editing / Narration - Kyle Sullivan

Title Graphics Based On Work By - Dan King

A great big thank you to Troy Bernier, Wellington Marcus Smith, Ben Pfeifer, Paul Laker, Alex Blocker, Darren Descallar, David Radford, Alex Zheng, and all of the other patrons who make this channel possible! Thank you for the support. Well done, team =)

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Check out our final chapter from Antarctica, “Adventures In The Southland 6″: https://youtu.be/BS0vyxBYAMY

Footage

Fantastic Beast & Where to Find Them, 2016

Star Wars: The Last Jedi, 2017

Will You Take My Hand, DSC, 2018

Balance Of Terror, TOS, 1966

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Music

Potolaka, by Patrik Almkvisth

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Fouh, by Twelwe

Clearer View by From Now On

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https://www.apmmusic.com/albums/SONIA-0510

Metamorphosis by Anders Ekengren

Fuzzy Logic by Nohoni

Vertigo by Gunnar Johnsén

Electro Pop Nr 11 by Jack Elphick

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Kelly Marie Tran Leaves Instagram -

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More information on Deindividuation - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40869-016-0017-0

https://www.popdust.com/fandom-culture-social-media-essay-2016-1970238597.html

http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305116664220

[samanthasroberts]

The making of a hangover: the true impact of one night out

Six reporters in city centres across the country report on one night of British drinking and its impact on the National Health Service

The calm before the storm

8.20pm, Cardiff

Police officers at Cardiff Central police station listen to the Cardiff After Dark briefing before heading out into the city. Photograph: Gareth Phillips for the Guardian

Were at the Cardiff ATC alcohol treatment centre; a collaboration between Cardiff and Vale University health board, local councils, South Wales police, the Welsh ambulance service and Cardiff Street Pastors. Right now, the police are preparing for the evening with a Cardiff After Dark meeting in the Welsh capitals main police station.

Sgt Gavin Howard briefs his team on what theyre doing tonight, with a slideshow with some interesting facts and figures. Last month, there were 145 people treated at the ATC, which is designed to ease pressure on hospital A&E staff by treating people with minor injuries and people suffering from too much drink.

Howard reminds officers to look out for revellers who pre-load drink heavily and cheaply at home before heading into the city centre. Pre-loading is seen as a particular problem for the emergency services the kids call it prinking pre-drinking. Steve Morris

9.09pm, Southampton

Consultant Dr Diana Hulbert, working in University hospital, Southampton, in the accident and emergency. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Guardian

Emergency consultant Diana Hulbert, who is in charge tonight, explains that not all alcohol-related attendances happen after a night on the town. A classic one is people waking up the next day and finding their wrist turned the wrong way, says Hulbert. So people are just as likely to present on the morning after.

She doesnt judge people who turn up in the department because of alcohol-related injuries or accidents, but says over the past 20 years she had noticed changes that are concerning.

People drink differently. Spirits is more a young persons drink and they can make people profoundly drunk very quickly. A beer is two units and you cant drink that many, maybe 10 pints. But if youre drinking shots, you can down five in five minutes. Thats what young people do. Lisa OCarroll

Keeping people out of A&E

Across the country, teams of people tour the streets treating relatively minor injuries suffered by people out on the town. In Manchester, they are called the Street Angels; Cardiff and other cities have their Street Pastors and, in Leicester, they are the Polamb.

Members of the Manchester Street Angels call a young womans father in order to help her get home. Photograph: Gary Calton for the Guardian

9.15pm, Leicester

On some nights the Polamb police-ambulance alcohol treatment vehicle in Leicester is a hub for treating people with alcohol-related injuries, attending up to 15 incidents in a night. It gets to the point that some of the local people recognise the Polamb and the paramedics who drive it. Jane Squire, East Midlands ambulance service paramedic, says one man she used to see regularly in the streets, a heavy drinker who would often call the ambulance for help, called her his green angel, for the dark green of the ambulance service uniform.

Sometimes theyll come up have a conversation with you and say: Ive cut my finger, can I have a plaster? says Squire. Other times theyll come up and say: Ive hurt my hand, can you take me to hospital? and Ill say: It says ambulance, not taxi.

Emergency services in Leicester city centre. Photograph: Kate Lyons for the Guardian

But the first call-out the Polamb has received now that the policeman for the evening, Const Joe Couchman, is on board is more serious treating a man in his 40s who suffered a cardiac arrest on the street. This isnt a typical call-out for the Polamb, not being alcohol-related, though it is believed the man was a heavy drinker, but they go where the need arises. Kate Lyons

11.13pm, Edinburgh

Tony Clapham (left) with his team of Edinburgh Street Pastors out on the streets. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

At Greenside parish church on Royal Terrace, in the centre of Edinburgh, the citys Street Pastors are preparing for the night with tea, home baking and a rousing hymn or two.

Street Pastors is an initiative of the Ascension Trust and was pioneered in London in 2013. It is now active in 270 towns and cities across the UK.

Street Pastors are volunteers from local churches who patrol in teams of men and women, usually from 10pm to 4am on a Friday and Saturday night, to care for, listen to and help people who out on the streets, whether celebrating on a hen night or homeless.

Two teams are going out tonight, one to the Grassmarket and another to George Street, with backpacks containing flasks of hot drinks and biscuits.

As team leader Tony Clapham explains, some of these volunteers have been working on the night time streets and have built up strong relationships with homeless people, as well as police and paramedics and other concerned with health and safety of the night time economy. Libby Brooks

Midnight, Stoke

Senior sister Nicola Beckett tries to wake a man who has come into A&E with suspected alcohol abuse issues at Royal Stoke University hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

One man, a regular alcohol abuser, has run off from hospital, and senior sister Nicola Beckett has to send police to find him, because he is now deemed a vulnerable adult as he has not had full medical checkups.

The hospital now has so many regular attendees they have a special group for them all, which flags up if someone has been in more than three times a month. Sometimes Beckett sees someone twice a day.

Paramedic Tracy Proud (2nd left, purple hair) along with paramedic colleagues care for an unconscious man who is admitted to A&E with suspected alcohol abuse issues at Royal Stoke University hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

You do get friendly with them, they are as nice to you as you are to them. You do see them decline, the physical decline. You admit them to rehab but you just know youll see them again. Its an addiction, an illness. So many, you are discharging them and they say: Ive got no home to go to. You sometimes do get a sense they are here for a hot meal and a bed and a kind face.

Beckett has seen some terrifying moments too. I dont want to make it too dramatic. But yes, I have feared for my life. You are trained in conflict management, self-defence. But if someone is drunk and aggressive, I cant handle that myself.

Elsewhere, she reported, patients were queuing on beds in the corridor at the ambulance triage. Paramedic Tracy Proud was liaising with A&E staff to speed up the transfer of people.

Paramedic Tracy Proud. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

Its ridiculous, she said, looking over her shoulder at the queue of beds behind her. One patient has a can of Skol under the trolley.

I think if you went through most of the patients, 85% shouldnt be here. People have a different view about what an emergency is. If Im called to look after a teenager or young person who is drunk, I call their parents straight away. Parents dont realise it, but its not our job to just be watching a drunk person who has passed out.

Agitated patients have lashed out in the back of moving ambulance. I had one patient who I thought was asleep and he came to, and he turned on me. I had to jump out the side door of the van. Jessica Elgot

A nurse attends to a young female student from Keele University who has been taken to A&E with suspected alochol abuse issues and is treated in resus at Royal Stoke University hospital in Stoke-on-Trent Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

12.17am, Manchester

Josh Halliday speaks with chief Angel, Rachel Goddard.

12.58am, Southampton

Nurse Katherine Chipande working in A&E at University hospital, Southampton. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Guardian

A night out in Southampton has turned into a night in A&E for one young woman who has just been admitted with a head injury. She had been at a party and fell and hit her head. There was alcohol and drugs, said nurse Catherine Chipande.

There are about 20 other patients in the majors area with two sleeping off the alcohol and a third about to be assessed.

Trouble 1.17am, Liverpool

Two Mikes, 23 and 32, a Carl, 18 and a Tom, 23, are sitting in a pub in the small hours. None has ever ended up in A&E, though Toms ended up in the drunk and disorderly, you know, the police. He got tangled up in the theft of a plastic ornament and jostled a plain clothes police officer leaping from a Vauxhall Corsa, five years ago. This is my time, he says triumphantly, to get my story out. If Id known he were a copper, things would have gone very differently. I was at my aunties 40th.

Mike the younger said: Things happen when youre drunk. I hit my cousin in the face on my 20th birthday.

The bottom line, said Mike the older, is that if youre trouble, trouble will find you. Yes, said the younger Mike resoundingly. My cousin went to Krazy House … Is that with a C or a K? How can you ask that? (they all shake their heads). And the next thing you know, hes had his nose broken. Is this the same cousin you punched in the face? I gave him a black eye. Someone else broke his nose. Theres levels. I know this, I studied law at A level.

The older Mike takes control. This is a beautiful place. This isnt a degenerate place. Independent bars, independent clubs, independent eateries. The transformation of Liverpool, the systemic regeneration of every part of this city, is almost beyond compare. I love this city and the people of this city. Zoe Williams

The view from the professionals

1.26am, Southampton

All has been calm in the assessment area in Southampton until now when a very aggressive drunk man is admitted with a cut to his face, swearing at anyone in sight. He is being held down by two policemen. We are advised not to go near him. Fuck off, he shouts to a female ambulance crew member accompanying him.

The man is refusing to cooperate as he is placed in a bay next to an elderly lady, beaming with a grateful smile towards the two nurses attending to her.

It takes a while for experienced staff to calm down the 29-year-old. Then its all sweetness and light, with a friendly hello for staff as he is wheeled in to majors for further assessment.

Sometimes its like that but sometimes they dont calm down at all and they get carried out in handcuffs. If it gets too bad and they have been assessed and they are not too bad they are just taken away by police, said receptionist Sarah Jones. Lisa OCarroll

1.46am, Manchester

Outside Deansgate Locks, a popular party spot with several bars and clubs, its not quite kicking out time but were already seeing a couple of early casualties. A drunk girl has fallen and cut her knee badly. Shes crying on the phone to her parents while being treated by the Street Angels. Another job saved from paramedics. Josh Halliday

1.51am, Stoke

Dr Ben Arnold in A&E at Royal Stoke University hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

Dr Ben Arnold, a senior house office in emergency medicine, loves a Friday night in the minor injuries section.

I like drunk people when they are not so unwell, you can joke with them. Their friends have brought them in because theyre worried about them, but from a medical point of view, theyre healthy, you can have a chat. Theres a common theme which colours the excuses made by revellers as they come round in A&E.

They say their drink has been spiked, their friends say: They always drink this much, it must be something in the drink. But it obviously is because they have had more than usual or havent eaten enough.

Its younger ones, 18-year-olds, who are more honest about it. They do get very embarrassed especially if they have had a loss of continence. And they have to go home in a hospital gown.

Sometimes, its not just the patients causing Arnold all the bother. Its friends and relatives who might be a bit drunk. They get bored, they dress up in the gloves and gowns, mucking about and you have to go and remind them that a hospital is a serious place. Jessica Elgot

1.55am, Cardiff

A nurse helps a very drunk teenager at the ATC in Bridge Street, Cardiff. Photograph: Gareth Phillips for the Guardian

An 18-year-old student is found lying alone, clearly drunk, on the pavement close to the university. There were a series of sexual assaults on women in this area last year so passersby are worried and dial 999.

She has not been assaulted but has simply drunk too much at a house party. An ambulance crew arrives and takes her to the alcohol treatment centre ATC. She is sick on the way and sick several times at the ATC.

At the ATC she is assessed and given water. Ceri Martin, a sister, and Charlotte Pritchard, a healthcare support worker tend to her. She is joined by a friend at the ATC and they sit together, slumped in a corner, waiting for her to recover.

Shell be here for two or three hours while she gets herself together, said Martin. Well get her to drink water, observe her and keep her warm. Then well make sure she gets home safely.

Im just glad that theres a place like this for young women like that. Shes in a safe place and were helping keep pressure off A&E.

A street pastor radios in to say she is bringing someone in to the ATC. So it begins, says Pritchard. It still could be a long night/morning here.

But its not always a thankless task, as this note at the ATC indicates:

steven morris (@stevenmorris20) January 23, 2016

A grateful patient cared for at the alcohol treatment centre in Cardiff. pic.twitter.com/CiLLATTFIV

2am, Manchester

Josh Halliday talks to Street Angel volunteer Paul Jones

2.01am, Southampton

Suspected drunk male brought into the assessment area of A&E in University hospital, Southampton. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Guardian

Two more alcohol admissions in Southampton in the space of 10 minutes, one so inebriated he is semi-conscious.

The worry here is that the alcohol might mask a head injury, says nurse Sam Carter. So we do a set of neuro obs [observations] and lactate assessment to see if he is dehydrated. We might also resort to pain stimuli, squeeze his trapezium really hard to check his responses, she adds. Ouch. Lisa OCarroll

2.10am, Stoke

Back in Stoke, there are 99 patients in A&E at 2am, which is an achievement for the staff, the first time numbers have dropped below 100 since 4.30pm yesterday. Patients are being discharged, or waiting to be admitted to other departments as beds there become available. Though some staff are beginning to end their shifts, many others are here until the morning. More than 100 people have come through the doors already since midnight; some who have overindulged tonight are on trollies in the corridor making emotional phone calls. There is more work to do before the night is over for A&E staff five more ambulances are on their way. Jessica Elgot

Source: http://allofbeer.com/the-making-of-a-hangover-the-true-impact-of-one-night-out/

from All of Beer https://allofbeer.wordpress.com/2018/01/02/the-making-of-a-hangover-the-true-impact-of-one-night-out/

[springvaletales]

((Session 27 is wrapped!))

We have a guest player tonight who used to play with us back in high school, and is usually too busy with work to join in on the regular.

Their character is basically the actual person their previous character was impersonating for an entire campaign.

Their name is Sir Carl Jaeger - a Fighter - who has +2 ‘brass knuckles’ (really just a full set of signet rings) that have his family’s crest embossed on them, and a critical hit leaves an imprint in the enemy’s face.

The beginning of the session was mostly hashing out a quick character sheet for SCJ, and an in-story reason for them to be in the city Rookery in some capacity to catch them up with the party.

“Listen, I didn’t have my royal squire bitch to dress me in my full, regal attire, so I’m just running around with brass knuckles and a trench coat.”

Don’t worry SCJ is choosing actual armor I’m not out to kill my guests today

I stand corrected the armor is a chain mail jock strap, a crop top breastplate, and a hat. Michael is in good company.

To account for SCJ’s PC’s own tired mind tonight, he is, in-character, very stoned after walking through a cloud of some unfortunate smoker’s hidden stash in the burning city. He wandered into the Rookery in a daze, and that’s where he meets the party.

Ena nearly Eldritch Blasted Sir Carl Jaeger in the face during his debut as he stumbled in through the stable doors.

“Look, HeroForge doesn’t have armored booty shorts.”

SCJ’s PC, about the armored booty shorts: “Showing the knee is going too far!”

Sir Carl Jaeger: “Hey can anyone tell me why the city’s falling apart suddenly?”

The Party: “We’re perpetuating a cup.”

Bagelby’s PC, distantly: “Hey [Fiancee], what’s a good name for a barn own griffon?”

After hearing the sound of flapping wings, Bagelby turned his new griffon friend - named Bartholemew Hootsbert - to face the stable’s launch ramp, and galloped off the edge.

He rolled a 20 to not fall off this time…only to look up from the saddle and find Commander Drokk staring him down from the back of his own griffon, Marrow-Eater, in the sky.

Bagelby, at Commander Drokk: “Surrender now, or prepare to fight!”

Asahi’s PC: “Hey, where’s Vashael?”

Me: “He’s still outside the Rookery on the inside of the city - he can’t change back to a human form for 24 hours still.

August’s PC: “Would be nice to have a dragon in this dog fight.”

Thiori’s PC: “Let’s be honest, with Vashael’s track record, this can only be an upgrade.”

Thiori also managed to befriend a griffon, and spent his first turn of the initiative saddling it up to get into the air and fight. He requested that it looked like a Secretary Bird.

Bagelby tried to cast Phantasmal Killer on Marrow-Eater, but he rolled juuuust high enough to save, and only hissed angrily.

Foiled, Bagelby plead with Bartholemew Hootsberg to fly as close to Commander Drokk as possible. Maybe it was his words, maybe it was the slugs in his pocket, but Bartholemew Hootsberg agreed, and flew up before diving like a roller coaster.

My players are astounded that a 21 doesn’t hit the bad guys, but they’ve been ripping through my bosses so far, and just pumping up the HP wasn’t going to cut it anymore.

Asahi befriended a Blue Jay griffon to join the fight, wanting to save her Levitate, and jumped on them bareback before pointing them out the door and launching.

I had her roll with disadvantage (since she did forgo the saddle), but she crushed both rolls, and launched into the sky as if she’d been born for it.

August tried to disarm Drokk (weapons or reigns, either way) by having SnowWing dive past Marrow-Eater and doing a melee attack, and she hit!

Commander Drokk lost his sword, the armor of his glove on that hand, and a slice of skin off the back of his hand from the attack. His sword fell down into the Roots of the city, and the petrified lake below.

Sir Carl Jaeger is known to the party as “Chain Mail Jock Strap Man” because he hasn’t actually been introduced yet.

SCJ has decided that he hated Commander Drokk as a person from months of staying in the city, and leapt into the sky on the back of a crow/raccon griffon with no saddle, and pure rage in his eyes.

Bagelby managed to snatch a belt clip with the emblem of the Sunfell Cult off of Drokk as he dove past.

Thiori finally got his griffon properly saddled up, and got into the sky. He consistently rolls high enough to hit Drokk’s raised AC, but he still scored a few good hits.

“Soooo dive-tackling him off the griffon is a no-go?”

Bagelby’s PC: “Is Commander Drokk wearing plate armor? Bagelby doesn’t have a lot of combat spells, but he does have Shocking Grasp.”

Shocking Grasp missed, which is a shame, because I had some plans for lightning damage.

Ena befriended a woodpecker griffon, and rode it bareback off the launch platform.

“Marrow-Eater looks al little chonky, but his feathers are puffed up in anger, so you can’t be sure.”

Asahi spent three ki points to Water Whip Drokk for 6d10. The party has dubbed this “The Fuckening”.

Marrow-Eater got dragged along when Asahi pulled Drokk 25ft closer to punch him, as they are attached,  and was very upset about it.

Sir Carl Jaeger, dropping out of the sky like a JoJo character to punch Drokk in the face: “THIS IS WHAT I THINK OF YOUR FOREIGN POLICY!”

Ena, flying past on her griffon after Michael misses an attack: “Get gud, kiddo!”

Me: “Michael briefly thinks about Dimension Door-ing the griffon out from under you.”

I don’t recognize this specific blood curse feat Thiori just pulled out to keep Marrow-Eater from attacking his griffon, and it isn’t one from the class .pdf he originally sent me, but I can’t question him mid-combat without breaking up the flow of the game.

Me, after Ena attacks Drokk for 32 damage: “He’s not looking so hot.”

Ena’s PC: “He was hot?”

Me: “I mean, if you’re into Orcs…”

Ena’s PC: “Which most of us are.”

Asahi jumped griffon-ship to land on Marrow-Eater’s back, and then rolled a high enough dex save to hold on when he immediately tried to barrel roll her off.

Asahi’s PC, typing in the group chat bc her mic is acting up: “sorry one more sec i didn’t think i would get this far xD”

Me: “You see that Drokk is firmly strapped into the saddle with a number of buckles.”

Bagelby’s PC: “Are we strapped into the saddle?”

Me: “Half of you are riding bareback, so I’m going to say ‘no’.”

Asahi pitched to the rest of the party the idea of her staying to take care of Drokk and Marrow-Eater while the rest of the party moves on to the Mayor’s Manor, as Zhul still has not responded to their signal, but no-one else wanted to go for it.

This fight did not go at all how I planned - we’ll have to do some comic book-level BS-ing to get some things back on track.

While Asahi and Thiori are beating up Drokk in melee range, Bagelby used his Kleptomancy to consume the Sunfell Cult belt clip and cast Sleep on Drokk.

It did not work, so he used his help action on Ena instead.

Bagelby’s PC: “I just need you to know that at level 7, Babelby has 36 hp.”

BABY OMG-

To mix things up, Ena cast Magic Missile…but Drokk still isn’t dead yet.

We had to wrap there to let everyone sleep, but we’ve got a date set next week, and we’ll move on to Phase 2 then! >:D

[adambstingus]

The making of a hangover: the true impact of one night out

Six reporters in city centres across the country report on one night of British drinking and its impact on the National Health Service

The calm before the storm

8.20pm, Cardiff

Police officers at Cardiff Central police station listen to the Cardiff After Dark briefing before heading out into the city. Photograph: Gareth Phillips for the Guardian

Were at the Cardiff ATC alcohol treatment centre; a collaboration between Cardiff and Vale University health board, local councils, South Wales police, the Welsh ambulance service and Cardiff Street Pastors. Right now, the police are preparing for the evening with a Cardiff After Dark meeting in the Welsh capitals main police station.

Sgt Gavin Howard briefs his team on what theyre doing tonight, with a slideshow with some interesting facts and figures. Last month, there were 145 people treated at the ATC, which is designed to ease pressure on hospital A&E staff by treating people with minor injuries and people suffering from too much drink.

Howard reminds officers to look out for revellers who pre-load drink heavily and cheaply at home before heading into the city centre. Pre-loading is seen as a particular problem for the emergency services the kids call it prinking pre-drinking. Steve Morris

9.09pm, Southampton

Consultant Dr Diana Hulbert, working in University hospital, Southampton, in the accident and emergency. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Guardian

Emergency consultant Diana Hulbert, who is in charge tonight, explains that not all alcohol-related attendances happen after a night on the town. A classic one is people waking up the next day and finding their wrist turned the wrong way, says Hulbert. So people are just as likely to present on the morning after.

She doesnt judge people who turn up in the department because of alcohol-related injuries or accidents, but says over the past 20 years she had noticed changes that are concerning.

People drink differently. Spirits is more a young persons drink and they can make people profoundly drunk very quickly. A beer is two units and you cant drink that many, maybe 10 pints. But if youre drinking shots, you can down five in five minutes. Thats what young people do. Lisa OCarroll

Keeping people out of A&E

Across the country, teams of people tour the streets treating relatively minor injuries suffered by people out on the town. In Manchester, they are called the Street Angels; Cardiff and other cities have their Street Pastors and, in Leicester, they are the Polamb.

Members of the Manchester Street Angels call a young womans father in order to help her get home. Photograph: Gary Calton for the Guardian

9.15pm, Leicester

On some nights the Polamb police-ambulance alcohol treatment vehicle in Leicester is a hub for treating people with alcohol-related injuries, attending up to 15 incidents in a night. It gets to the point that some of the local people recognise the Polamb and the paramedics who drive it. Jane Squire, East Midlands ambulance service paramedic, says one man she used to see regularly in the streets, a heavy drinker who would often call the ambulance for help, called her his green angel, for the dark green of the ambulance service uniform.

Sometimes theyll come up have a conversation with you and say: Ive cut my finger, can I have a plaster? says Squire. Other times theyll come up and say: Ive hurt my hand, can you take me to hospital? and Ill say: It says ambulance, not taxi.

Emergency services in Leicester city centre. Photograph: Kate Lyons for the Guardian

But the first call-out the Polamb has received now that the policeman for the evening, Const Joe Couchman, is on board is more serious treating a man in his 40s who suffered a cardiac arrest on the street. This isnt a typical call-out for the Polamb, not being alcohol-related, though it is believed the man was a heavy drinker, but they go where the need arises. Kate Lyons

11.13pm, Edinburgh

Tony Clapham (left) with his team of Edinburgh Street Pastors out on the streets. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for the Guardian

At Greenside parish church on Royal Terrace, in the centre of Edinburgh, the citys Street Pastors are preparing for the night with tea, home baking and a rousing hymn or two.

Street Pastors is an initiative of the Ascension Trust and was pioneered in London in 2013. It is now active in 270 towns and cities across the UK.

Street Pastors are volunteers from local churches who patrol in teams of men and women, usually from 10pm to 4am on a Friday and Saturday night, to care for, listen to and help people who out on the streets, whether celebrating on a hen night or homeless.

Two teams are going out tonight, one to the Grassmarket and another to George Street, with backpacks containing flasks of hot drinks and biscuits.

As team leader Tony Clapham explains, some of these volunteers have been working on the night time streets and have built up strong relationships with homeless people, as well as police and paramedics and other concerned with health and safety of the night time economy. Libby Brooks

Midnight, Stoke

Senior sister Nicola Beckett tries to wake a man who has come into A&E with suspected alcohol abuse issues at Royal Stoke University hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

One man, a regular alcohol abuser, has run off from hospital, and senior sister Nicola Beckett has to send police to find him, because he is now deemed a vulnerable adult as he has not had full medical checkups.

The hospital now has so many regular attendees they have a special group for them all, which flags up if someone has been in more than three times a month. Sometimes Beckett sees someone twice a day.

Paramedic Tracy Proud (2nd left, purple hair) along with paramedic colleagues care for an unconscious man who is admitted to A&E with suspected alcohol abuse issues at Royal Stoke University hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

You do get friendly with them, they are as nice to you as you are to them. You do see them decline, the physical decline. You admit them to rehab but you just know youll see them again. Its an addiction, an illness. So many, you are discharging them and they say: Ive got no home to go to. You sometimes do get a sense they are here for a hot meal and a bed and a kind face.

Beckett has seen some terrifying moments too. I dont want to make it too dramatic. But yes, I have feared for my life. You are trained in conflict management, self-defence. But if someone is drunk and aggressive, I cant handle that myself.

Elsewhere, she reported, patients were queuing on beds in the corridor at the ambulance triage. Paramedic Tracy Proud was liaising with A&E staff to speed up the transfer of people.

Paramedic Tracy Proud. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

Its ridiculous, she said, looking over her shoulder at the queue of beds behind her. One patient has a can of Skol under the trolley.

I think if you went through most of the patients, 85% shouldnt be here. People have a different view about what an emergency is. If Im called to look after a teenager or young person who is drunk, I call their parents straight away. Parents dont realise it, but its not our job to just be watching a drunk person who has passed out.

Agitated patients have lashed out in the back of moving ambulance. I had one patient who I thought was asleep and he came to, and he turned on me. I had to jump out the side door of the van. Jessica Elgot

A nurse attends to a young female student from Keele University who has been taken to A&E with suspected alochol abuse issues and is treated in resus at Royal Stoke University hospital in Stoke-on-Trent Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

12.17am, Manchester

Josh Halliday speaks with chief Angel, Rachel Goddard.

12.58am, Southampton

Nurse Katherine Chipande working in A&E at University hospital, Southampton. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Guardian

A night out in Southampton has turned into a night in A&E for one young woman who has just been admitted with a head injury. She had been at a party and fell and hit her head. There was alcohol and drugs, said nurse Catherine Chipande.

There are about 20 other patients in the majors area with two sleeping off the alcohol and a third about to be assessed.

Trouble 1.17am, Liverpool

Two Mikes, 23 and 32, a Carl, 18 and a Tom, 23, are sitting in a pub in the small hours. None has ever ended up in A&E, though Toms ended up in the drunk and disorderly, you know, the police. He got tangled up in the theft of a plastic ornament and jostled a plain clothes police officer leaping from a Vauxhall Corsa, five years ago. This is my time, he says triumphantly, to get my story out. If Id known he were a copper, things would have gone very differently. I was at my aunties 40th.

Mike the younger said: Things happen when youre drunk. I hit my cousin in the face on my 20th birthday.

The bottom line, said Mike the older, is that if youre trouble, trouble will find you. Yes, said the younger Mike resoundingly. My cousin went to Krazy House … Is that with a C or a K? How can you ask that? (they all shake their heads). And the next thing you know, hes had his nose broken. Is this the same cousin you punched in the face? I gave him a black eye. Someone else broke his nose. Theres levels. I know this, I studied law at A level.

The older Mike takes control. This is a beautiful place. This isnt a degenerate place. Independent bars, independent clubs, independent eateries. The transformation of Liverpool, the systemic regeneration of every part of this city, is almost beyond compare. I love this city and the people of this city. Zoe Williams

The view from the professionals

1.26am, Southampton

All has been calm in the assessment area in Southampton until now when a very aggressive drunk man is admitted with a cut to his face, swearing at anyone in sight. He is being held down by two policemen. We are advised not to go near him. Fuck off, he shouts to a female ambulance crew member accompanying him.

The man is refusing to cooperate as he is placed in a bay next to an elderly lady, beaming with a grateful smile towards the two nurses attending to her.

It takes a while for experienced staff to calm down the 29-year-old. Then its all sweetness and light, with a friendly hello for staff as he is wheeled in to majors for further assessment.

Sometimes its like that but sometimes they dont calm down at all and they get carried out in handcuffs. If it gets too bad and they have been assessed and they are not too bad they are just taken away by police, said receptionist Sarah Jones. Lisa OCarroll

1.46am, Manchester

Outside Deansgate Locks, a popular party spot with several bars and clubs, its not quite kicking out time but were already seeing a couple of early casualties. A drunk girl has fallen and cut her knee badly. Shes crying on the phone to her parents while being treated by the Street Angels. Another job saved from paramedics. Josh Halliday

1.51am, Stoke

Dr Ben Arnold in A&E at Royal Stoke University hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian

Dr Ben Arnold, a senior house office in emergency medicine, loves a Friday night in the minor injuries section.

I like drunk people when they are not so unwell, you can joke with them. Their friends have brought them in because theyre worried about them, but from a medical point of view, theyre healthy, you can have a chat. Theres a common theme which colours the excuses made by revellers as they come round in A&E.

They say their drink has been spiked, their friends say: They always drink this much, it must be something in the drink. But it obviously is because they have had more than usual or havent eaten enough.

Its younger ones, 18-year-olds, who are more honest about it. They do get very embarrassed especially if they have had a loss of continence. And they have to go home in a hospital gown.

Sometimes, its not just the patients causing Arnold all the bother. Its friends and relatives who might be a bit drunk. They get bored, they dress up in the gloves and gowns, mucking about and you have to go and remind them that a hospital is a serious place. Jessica Elgot

1.55am, Cardiff

A nurse helps a very drunk teenager at the ATC in Bridge Street, Cardiff. Photograph: Gareth Phillips for the Guardian

An 18-year-old student is found lying alone, clearly drunk, on the pavement close to the university. There were a series of sexual assaults on women in this area last year so passersby are worried and dial 999.

She has not been assaulted but has simply drunk too much at a house party. An ambulance crew arrives and takes her to the alcohol treatment centre ATC. She is sick on the way and sick several times at the ATC.

At the ATC she is assessed and given water. Ceri Martin, a sister, and Charlotte Pritchard, a healthcare support worker tend to her. She is joined by a friend at the ATC and they sit together, slumped in a corner, waiting for her to recover.

Shell be here for two or three hours while she gets herself together, said Martin. Well get her to drink water, observe her and keep her warm. Then well make sure she gets home safely.

Im just glad that theres a place like this for young women like that. Shes in a safe place and were helping keep pressure off A&E.

A street pastor radios in to say she is bringing someone in to the ATC. So it begins, says Pritchard. It still could be a long night/morning here.

But its not always a thankless task, as this note at the ATC indicates:

steven morris (@stevenmorris20) January 23, 2016

A grateful patient cared for at the alcohol treatment centre in Cardiff. pic.twitter.com/CiLLATTFIV

2am, Manchester

Josh Halliday talks to Street Angel volunteer Paul Jones

2.01am, Southampton

Suspected drunk male brought into the assessment area of A&E in University hospital, Southampton. Photograph: Antonio Olmos for the Guardian

Two more alcohol admissions in Southampton in the space of 10 minutes, one so inebriated he is semi-conscious.

The worry here is that the alcohol might mask a head injury, says nurse Sam Carter. So we do a set of neuro obs [observations] and lactate assessment to see if he is dehydrated. We might also resort to pain stimuli, squeeze his trapezium really hard to check his responses, she adds. Ouch. Lisa OCarroll

2.10am, Stoke

Back in Stoke, there are 99 patients in A&E at 2am, which is an achievement for the staff, the first time numbers have dropped below 100 since 4.30pm yesterday. Patients are being discharged, or waiting to be admitted to other departments as beds there become available. Though some staff are beginning to end their shifts, many others are here until the morning. More than 100 people have come through the doors already since midnight; some who have overindulged tonight are on trollies in the corridor making emotional phone calls. There is more work to do before the night is over for A&E staff five more ambulances are on their way. Jessica Elgot

from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-making-of-a-hangover-the-true-impact-of-one-night-out/ from All of Beer https://allofbeercom.tumblr.com/post/169240948782

[alanafsmith]

DWF keeps 66% of its autumn NQs

As Cleary Gottlieb posts perfect 100% result

DWF’s London office

DWF has revealed a diasppointing autumn retention score of 66%.

The firm trained up its biggest ever cohort of aspiring lawyers, its 50 trainees beating the intakes of Allen & Overy (47), Freshfields (41) and Slaughter and May (32). From this massive qualifying cohort, the northern upstart — which has 23 offices in nine different countries — has kept hold of just 33 of its rookie lawyers.

The outfit’s new London recruits will start on a salary of £59,000, while their regional peers will earn £38,000. Those qualifying into one of the firm’s two Scottish outposts (Glasgow and Edinburgh) will receive £36,000. DWF currently offers around 40 training contacts annually.

DWF’s recent retention form has been mixed to say the least. In the past two retention rounds the firm chalked up results of 74% (35 out of 47) and 62% (29 out of 47).

Commenting on this autumn’s result, the firm’s training partner, Carl Graham, said: “As we undergo significant growth there is naturally a period of adjustment as we determine how to balance our training scheme against the needs of our changing business.” He continued:

While of course we always aim to retain as many of our talented trainees as possible, this year we had an exceptionally large intake and could not meet demand in our most popular practice areas. We are thrilled with the strong talent we have retained this year and look forward to seeing them develop their careers with us.

Meanwhile, the London office of US outfit Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has posted a perfect 100% score. The New York-headquartered firm confirmed that all nine of its newbies had opted to stick around, with eight remaining in London and one moving to Abu Dhabi.

The departments that will share these newly qualified lawyers (NQs) are: M&A, tax, dispute resolution, IP, capital markets, regulatory, competition, finance and restructuring. The firm offers around 15 training contracts each year, and pays its new lawyers a staggering £120,000.

Trainee autumn retention 2017

Firm Score Breakdown Burges Salmon 100% 28/28 Watson Farley & Williams 100% 15/15 Fieldfisher 100% 13/13 Blake Morgan 100% 9/9 Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton 100% 9/9 Forsters 100% 8/8 Sullivan & Cromwell 100% 4/4 Latham & Watkins 95% 21/22 Ashurst 95% 19/20 Macfarlanes 92% 23/25 (two on FTC*) Slaughter and May 91% 29/32 Travers Smith 90% 18/20 Ince & Co 90% 9/10 Stephenson Harwood 90% 9/10 Blake Morgan 89% 8/9 Reed Smith 86% 12/14 Allen & Overy 85% 40/47 Linklaters 84% 47/56 Gowling WLG 84% 21/25 Bird & Bird 83% 15/18 White & Case 83% 15/18 Covington & Burling 83% 5/6 Osborne Clarke 82% 14/17 RPC 82% 14/17 Clifford Chance 81% 42/52 Addleshaw Goddard 81% 38/47 Bond Dickinson 81% 22/27 Eversheds Sutherland 80% 44/55 Herbert Smith Freehills 80% 28/35 Hogan Lovells 80% 24/30 HFW 80% 8/10 Clyde & Co 79% 34/43 (one on FTC) Mills & Reeve 79% 15/19 (one on FTC) DLA Piper 78% 75/96 Simmons & Simmons 78% 21/27 Shearman & Sterling 75% 12/16 Pinsent Masons 74% 67/91 Mayer Brown 73% 8/11 Withers 73% 8/11 Charles Russell Speechlys 71% 17/24 Trowers & Hamlins 70% 7/10 Berwin Leighton Paisner 67% 16/24 Browne Jacobson 67% 6/9 DWF 66% 33/50 Freshfields 66% 27/41 Squire Patton Boggs 65% Not disclosed Dentons 64% 18/28 Mishcon de Reya 64% 9/14 Taylor Wessing 62% 16/26 Kirkland & Ellis 56% 5/9 Weil Gotshal 50% 5/10 Stewarts Law 25% 1/4

*Fixed term contract

For all the latest commercial awareness info, and advance notification of Legal Cheek’s careers events, sign up to the Legal Cheek Hub.

The post DWF keeps 66% of its autumn NQs appeared first on Legal Cheek.

from All About Law https://www.legalcheek.com/2017/09/dwf-keeps-66-of-its-autumn-nqs/

[strange-spaghetti]

I have to get ready for work, so the whole story of how incredibly bizarre, odd, & fortunate my occurrences were given to me for Yes & Palmer will be in tick downs & without much detail or structure

  - How incredible it was that ELP songs sounded that good coming from two kids & Palmer. - Knife edge! oh my god - The audio of Greg Lake reciting the intro of Lucky Man♥♥♥ - How cute Carl Palmer is - Meeting Carl Palmer! He was done signing, lucky at all I was able to get a smile & a handshake as he was leaving but OHMYGOD. (but if I thought that was tops of the night, so wrong I would be) - Rundgren was not for me -YES! - Survival! so beautiful! my goodness! - During South Side of the Sky (pretty early on), 4 young men arrive & there’s a brawl between them & the people sat in front of me about wrong seats. I! was not in my correct seat, I try to get to my right seat but an usher informs me that it’s being used by a large man who needs two seats, so I’m put in the same row I was initially at. two of the young men are sat by me & ~chat me up~ & I go with them to their actual seats (basically where I f*cking was to begin with) anyway, they’re trying to make friendly with me & indeed they do because guess who has all access passes? These four young men. but issue is there are only two passes. Two dudes go & are on stage sending pictures to his mate. They come back, & me & the dude (who his mates where trying to wing man me onto or some bullocks), we take the passes next. - I’m on stage for Roundabout! - I’m right next to Alan White - Show ends, me & dude go say Hi to Howe in which his response, very politely & so f*cking the essence of Steve Howe, “This is a quiet time.” !~* Howe is so beautiful, & I feel a bit bad for imposing because I very much had no place hanging around... until I meet Billy - Billy & I talk for a good while & I could very well have a crush on him because he’s the bass player ya know? We talk about King Crimson&Asia&Wetton&Yes&CHRIS SQUIRE~`*& bass, which for the most part discussed with me in layman’s terms, but he tells me he plays this white bass of his because it's a bass Sting uses! & INSTANT CRUSH. - Then dude wants me to give the pass back ‘cause I guess he can very well tell that he’s getting nowhere with me & he wants to be with his mates which totally fine. After meeting Billy I was his hanger-on anyway & he got me access. -Then I was Howe’s problem aha -but I also meet Jon & he jokes with me because our hairstyle is similar. & what a tiny pretty man he is - again just Billy’s hanger-on so I’m in the huddle with them before their meet & greets, & during the meet & greet I’m just standing there for a while until one of their managers gets me along with the promotion manager’s daughter to hand out set-lists - From the table Billy looks over & mouths “are you okay?” & I smile & nod - During all this, I’m closest to Howe. I see him smile maybe twice (never at me) but I would often catch him studying me disapprovingly. He, I think was reading the badges on my bag, which I have a badge that says Meat is Murder, so he couldn’t dislike me too much, huh? Also, working front of house, I have ~personable etiquette~ (this is a field I’m working at getting into ya know) -Howe wants the tent door closed, so what do I do? I help close the door since it wasn’t budging for a crew member. That was one thing I regret, I was too in mind of being with Yes that I didn’t properly network with the crew. I talked to a handful of managers, but it was never informative, just me hearing them out really. - So I meet Downes & White quite awkwardly, my thing was handshakes apparently I don’t know what I was doing. I tell Billy I have to go mostly because it was midnight. He is just too friendly for his own good, in my heart & in my mind I’m building it up to maybe he had a thing for me too, but whatever, he knew I was 22 & he was nothing but kind & it never went that way (though kind of hoped it was.. nexttime?) He told me to message him on facebook, but I don’t have facebook, but I have twitter, but HE doesn't have twitter. - I part with him & Jon with a hug & kind words & that was my f*cking Yes experience! Side points MACHINE MESSIAH was so killer! oh my gosh, so excellent. Such a great set-list, they played so many of my favorite Yes songs. Unfortunately for some of ~my~ songs, dudes were chatting me up, but me going along with it proved beneficial didn’t it!?