#the ad​ventures of jim lee and friends

[al3x-xxxx]

Ellie fanart

[jgthirlwell]

2020 Year In Review

This year once again I invited some friends and colleagues to reflect on 2020

JG Thirlwell

Composer

Foetus Xordox Manorexia Steroid Maximus Venture Bros Archer

www.foetus.org

2020 was a troubling and disturbing year. I created a lot of music and experienced a lot of nights waking at 5am in a panic. I deeply missed the sacred experience of being able to see live music. In its absence of that I listened to a lot of music. It was difficult to whittle down this list but here are a lot of albums I enjoyed in 2020, in no particular order.

Le Grand Sbam Furvent (Dur Et Doux) John Elmquist’s HardArt Group I Own an Ion (900 Nurses) Roly Porter Kistvaen (Subtext) Liturgy Origin Of The Alimonies (YLYLCYN) Clark Kiri Variations (Throttle) Dai Kaht Dai Kaht I & II (Soleil Zeuhl) Chromb Le livre des merveilles (Dur Et Doux) Horse Lords The Common Task (Northern Spy) Ecker & Meultzer Carbon (Subtext) Insane Warrior Tendrils (RJ’s Electrical Connections) Jeff Parker Suite For Max Brown (International Anthem) Jacob Kirkegaard Opus Mors (Topos) Tristan Perich Drift Multiply (Nonesuch) Bec Plexus Sticklip (New Amsterdam) Vak Budo (Soleil Zeuhl) Merlin Nova BOO! (Bandcamp) The The Muscle OST (Cineola) Zombi 2020 (Relapse) Regis Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss (Downwards) Rival Consoles Articulation (Erased Tapes) Sarah Davachi Cantus, Descant (L.A.T.E.) Sufjan Stevens The Ascension (Asthmatic Kitty) Idles Ultra Mono (Partisan) Daedelus The Bittereindeers (Brainfeeder) Boris No (Bandcamp) Aksak Maboul Figures / Un peu de l’ame des bandits / Onze Danses Pour Cobattre La Migraine (Crammed) Noveller Arrow (Ba Da Bing) Felicia Atkinson Everything Evaporate (Shelter Press) Ital Tek Dream Boundary (Planet Mu) Author and Punisher Beastland (Relapse) Sparks A Steady Drip Drip Drip (BMG) Corima Amatarasu (Soleil Zeuhl) Code Orange Underneath (Roadrunner) Deerhoof Future Teenage Cave Artists /Silly Symphonies / To Be Surrounded../ Love Lore(Joyful Noise) Sote Moscels (Opal Tapes) Run The Jewels RTJ4 (Jewel Runners) Oranssi Pazuzu Mestarin Kynsi (Nuclear Blast) Master Boot Record Floppy Disk Overdrive (Metal Blade) Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith The Mosaic Of Transformation (Ghostly International) / Ears (Western Vinyl) Michael Gordon Acquanetta (Cantelope) Neom Arkana Temporis (Soleil Zeuhl) Rian Treanor Ataxia / File Under UK Metaplasm (Planet Mu) Helm Saturnalia (Alter) Ivvvo doG (Halcyon Veil) Robert Normandeau Figures (Empreintes Digitales) Ben Vida Reducing The Tempo To Zero (Shelter Press) Beatrice Dillon Workaround (Pan) Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar (Domino) Sea Oleena Weaving A Basket (Higher Plain Music) Elysian Fields Transience Of Life (Ojet) Rhapsody Symphony Of Enchanted Lands II - The Dark Secret (Magic Circle) Duma Duma (Nyege Nyege) Ulla Strauss Tumbling Towards a Wall / Seed (Bandcamp)

Honorable mentions Carl Stone Stolen Car (Unseen Worlds)  Nazar Guerilla (Hyperdub) Iwo Zaluski with the Children of Park Lane Primary School, Wembley The Remarkable Earth Making Machine (Trunk) Nahash Flowers Of The Revolution (SVBKVLT) Cindy Lee Whats Tonight To Eternity (Bandcamp) Insect Ark The Vanishing (Profound Lore) 33EMYBW Arthropods (SVBKVLT) Declan McKenna Zeroes (Tomplicated) Layma Azur Zeii (Bandcamp)

FILM TV Succession ZeroZeroZero Escape at Dannemora 1917 Small Axe : Five films by Steve McQueen Pirhanas Monos The Hater Better Call Saul

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Drew Daniel

Matmos, The Soft Pink Truth

an alphabet of 2020 recordings

Arca “KiCk i” BFTT “Intrusive / Obtrusive” clipping. “Visions of Bodies Being Burned” Duma “Duma” Eilbacher, Max “Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly)” Forbidden Colors “La Yeguada” GILA “Energy Demonstration” HiedraH Club de Baile “Bichote-K Bailable Vol. 2” Ian Power “Maintenance Hums” Jeff Carey “Index[off]” Kassel Jaeger “Meith” Laurie Anderson “Songs From the Bardo” Mukqs “Water Levels” Negativland “The World Will Decide” O’Rourke, Jim “Shutting Down Here” Perlesvaus “These Things Below with Those Above” Quicksails “Blue Rise” Rian Treanor “File Under UK Metaplasm” Slikback “///” Terminal Nation “Holocene Extinction” Ulcerate “Stare Into Death and Be Still” Various Artists “HAUS of ALTR” William Tyler “New Vanitas” Xyla “Ways” Y A S H A “Summations” :zoviet-france: “Châsse 2ᵉ”

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Sarah Lipstate  (Noveller)

With all live performances canceled, this was truly the year of demo videos and home studio recording for me. These are 10 pieces of gear that came out in 2020 that helped keep me feeling creative and inspired during lockdown. In no particular order:

EHX Oceans 12 Dual Stereo Reverb - The Oceans 12 ticks all the boxes for what I’m looking for in a great soundscaping reverb. I used the Shimmer and Reverse algorithms in conjunction a lot when I was composing music for a film score.

Chase Bliss Audio Blooper - While I don’t actually own a Blooper, I had the pleasure of borrowing one from Mike of Baranik Guitars after NAMM this year. He made an incredible Blooper-inspired guitar and I was completely charmed by them both. Chase Bliss always delivers pedals that push me creatively and the Blooper truly hits the mark.

Cooper FX Arcades - I love everything Cooper FX has released to-date so the opportunity to access those sounds in one pedal via plug-in cartridges is just awesome.

SolidGoldFX NU-33 - I was asked to do a demo of this pedal for its release and ended up being really charmed by this box’s approach to lo-fi nostalgia. I’ve used it a lot for film scoring and highly recommend adding it to your collection.

Demedash Effects T-120 DLX V2 - I LOVE a good tape echo and the T-120 Deluxe V2 ranks up there with the best I’ve tried. This pedal made its way to me this Christmas and I look forward to making some beautiful sounds with it in the new year.

Hologram Electronics Microcosm - The Microcosm is one of those pedals where you should fully read the manual before diving in but once you put in that initial effort you’ve got a massively powerful tool on your hands. It does glitch like no other. Definitely worth the homework

Azzam Bells MP019 - I discovered this unique instrument through a post on Reverb’s IG page and immediately looked it up and ordered one. These experimental percussion instruments are hand-made in Italy and they’re as beautiful visually as they are sonically. I used it for bowed cymbal and daxophone sounds on a film score and it was absolutely haunting.

Echopark Dual Harmonic Boost 2 - I love the control you have over dialing in the perfect amount of grit with these dual boost circuits. I use it a lot as a textural tool when I’m laying down drones or bringing in big distorted swells. It’s one of the most versatile overdrives in my collection and I love that.

Fender Parallel Universe Series Volume II Maverick Dorado - I was smitten with the Maverick Dorado when I first saw it at NAMM. It has a lot of the specs that I look for in a guitar and the body shape with the Mystic Pine finish just blew me away. I hope that I get to use it live soon.

Polyeffects Beebo - The Beebo is one of those pedals that I genuinely feel is smarter than I am. It’s like an entire computer in one small touchscreen box. I can’t claim to have mastered using it yet but the sounds that I have managed to get out of it so far have been brilliant. I’m looking forward to spending more time with this box in 2021

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HELM 2020 REVIEW

Let's get the bad stuff out the way first, 2020 was undoubtedly an awful year. I'm still not sure how to really respond to seeing a global pandemic bring the capital to its knees and everything I love and hold dear to a grinding halt. Our government fucked it's response, putting profit before people and killing tens of thousands. The Labour Party descended into farce with the newly elected leader Sir Keith revealing himself as a bland centrist with no opposition or ideas. On a personal level it sucked not being able to travel or see my friends in different parts of the world - or even the same country - who I am starting to miss a lot. However, I was fortunate enough to get through the year with my sanity intact. Music, art and culture once again being my main positive. I think I listened to more music than I have in any year ever. I read more books than I have done since I was a teenager probably. I also re-discovered the joys of walking long distances and am extremely thankful for living near a lot of incredible green spaces: Epping Forest, Walthamstow Wetlands, Walthamstow Marshes, Wanstead Park, Wanstead Flats...

Music. My favourite albums of the year.

Oranssi Pazuzu - Mestarin kynsi Wetware - Flail Raspberry Bulbs - Before The Age Of Mirrors Necrot - Mortal Rope Sect - The Great Flood Private World - Aleph Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never Pyrrhon - Abcess Time CS+Kreme - Snoopy Speaker Music - Black Nationalist Sonic Weaponry Drew McDowall - Agalma Regis - Hidden In This Is The Light That You Miss Nazar - Guerilla Zoviet France - Russian Heterodoxical Songs (and all the ZF reissues!!) Triple Negative - God Bless the Death Drive Permission - Organised People Suffer Actress - Karma & Desire Acolytes - Stress II The Gerogerigegege - >(decrescendo) Chubby & The Gang - Speed Kills Flora Yin-Wong - Holy Palm Eiko Ishibashi - Hyakki Yagyo The The - See Without Being Seen Prurient - Casablanca Flamethrower Henning Christiansen - L’essere Umano Errabando La Voce Errabando Subdued - Over The Hills And Far Away Rian Treanor - File Under UK Metaplasm Komare - The Sense Of Hearing Shredded Nerve - Acts Of Betrayal Jesu - Terminus Autechre - SIGN Hey Colossus - Dances / Curses Sparkle Division - To Feel Embraced Mark Harwood - A Perfect Punctual Paradise Under My Own Name Still House Plants - Fast Edit The Bug & Dis Fig - In Blue Kommand - Terrorscape Haus Arafna - Asche Khthoniik Cerviiks - Æequiizoiikum Worm - Gloomlord Kraus - A Golden Brain Faceless Burial - Speciation

A shout-out to Jon Abby's AMPLIFY series on Bandcamp / Facebook, which I contributed a new piece of music to.

A shout out to the labels where most of the music I listened to seemed to come from:

The Trilogy Tapes Iron Bonehead Penultimate Press Dais La Vida Es Un Mus

Gigs. Despite live music being destroyed in 2020 I still saw a few unforgettable performances at the beginning of the year.

Graham Lambkin @ The ICA, London Puce Mary / JFK @ The Glove That Fits, London Demilich @ Finnfest, The Garage, London Container / PC World / National Unrest @ Venue MOT, London S.H.I.T / Asid / Chubby & The Gang @ Static Shock Festival, ExFed, London

Books I enjoyed. Most not published this year, but all read in 2020.

Joe Kennedy - Authentocrats David Balzer - Curationism Tom Mills - BBC: The Myth Of A Public Service Simon Morris - Consumer Guide: Special Edition Luke Turner - Out Of The Woods Various - Bad News For Labour Mike Wendling - Alt-Right Baited Area issues 1 & 2.

Film. Three good films I saw this year which I hadn't before.

Suspiria (Remake) Midsommar Cannibal Holocaust

Podcasts. I listened to a lot of these whilst walking.

We Don't Talk About The Weather Novara Media Tysky Sour & Novara FM Grounded with Louis Theroux System of Systems Red Scare loveline episodes Suite 212 NOISEXTRA Social Discipline CONTAIN

TV.

Didn't watch a huge amount and what I did was mostly trash. For some reason I rewatched both series' of This Life, a British drama from the late 90's about a group of young professionals house sharing and navigating their careers. Very cringey and has aged terribly, but it was perversely fascinating to revisit something from that time in the age of the pandemic. Following on from this I binge watched the entire series of Industry which was entertaining enough. A programme about a bunch of horny bankers with what felt like a confused ideology behind it. It seemed stuck between trying to criticise and glorify the culture around the industry, but also protect the industry itself from outside criticism by portraying anyone who may oppose as an insufferable wanker. Currently halfway through Succession which is OK. The Murdoch documentaries on the BBC were excellent and a rare respite from their descent into client journalism.

Thanks to anyone who listened to my music this year also. Best wishes to you all for 2021.

Luke Younger

http://hhelmm.com | http://alter.bandcamp.com

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Elliott Sharp

composer

1. My Nr. 1 lesson: patience. Whether it's bouncing through 30 seconds of severe turbulence at 39000 feet or slogging through 30 minutes of a interminable piece of concert music, one attribute I've tried to develop is the ability to see past the discrete and awaited ending, the exact framing of the immediate process, but put it into the context of a larger time frame. I've found that this year more than all others has demanded it. Breathing helps...

2. Books: revisiting old favorites from the realm of Thomas Pynchon and Philip K. Dick (both especially relevant), digging into John Lomax's portrait of Jelly Roll Morton, the works of Colson Whitehead, random things off of the shelf…

3. Composing: with touring off the table, I focused on that which needed to be written, some requested and commissioned, some spontaneously springing forth. Composing requires that one open the windows wide to the world, which at this moment brought in grief, terror, uncertainty, anxiety, visions of plague and pestilence and incipient fascism. Okay, now shut the window and get to work! How to process, translate, transform? The work can be a comfortable and obsessive cocoon once one learns to handle the radioactive materials and put them into the creativity reactor.

4. Beans! We have long been a fan in our house of the wide world of legumes but this year brought two stars to the front: the black bean and the red lentil. The black bean commands the lofty peaks but the seemingly infinite variations of dal surround it. Ginger, garlic, turmeric, smoked paprika, cayenne, onions, and olive oil form the basis then imagination builds.

5. Online teaching substituted for my canceled conduction of workshops in the Pyrenees Mountains of France. Between the participants and myself, we built a temporary but very congenial space online to share concepts and music. In addition, private lessons brought conversation and music with new friends in Germany, Italy, California, Australia, Illinois, Denmark, Pennsylvania, Spain, Florida, Brazil.

6. What started out as "stress baking" (before I even had heard of the term) soon became a frequent practice that yielded very edible results. The twins preferred the sweeter forays into banana bread and chocolate cake. I tried to find a balance between tried-and-true techniques and experiments in texture and taste with yeasted pumpernickels, multi-grains, and seed breads.

7. While not the same as performing 'live ', online gigs proved that it was possible to generate a surprising amount of adrenaline even without the pheromonal handshaking of a room filled with receptive ears. As a corollary, online recording collaborations with friends worldwide proved to be inspiring and a suitable substrate for sonic experimentation, exploration of new instruments, tunings, effects programming, structures. In these realms, shout-outs to Helene Breschand, Mike Cooper, Henry Kaiser, Tracie Morris, Mikel Banks, Dougie Bowne, Payton McDonald, Billy Martin, Colin Stetson, Jim O'Rourke, Scott Amendola, Roberto Zorzi, Jason Hoopes, Eric Mingus, Melanie Dyer, Dave Hofstra, Don McKenzie, Sergio Sorrentino, Veniero Rizzardi, Taylor Ho Bynum, Scott Fields, Bachir Attar, Karl Bruckmaier, Robbie Lee, Matthew Evan Taylor, Matteo Liberatore, Al Kaatz, David Barratt, Jessica Hallock, Kolin Zeinikov, Robbie Lee, Jeremy Nesse, James Ilgenfritz, Sergio Armaroli, Steve Piccolo, Sandy Ewen, David Weinstein, Jim Whittemore, Chris Vine, Werner Puntigam, William Schimmel.

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Daniel O’Sullivan

(Grumbling Fur, Guapo, Miasma & the Carousel of Headless Horses, Ulver, Sunn O))), Æthenor, Laniakea, Miracle, Mothlite, and This Is Not This Heat.)

Music Richard Youngs - Ein Klein Nein Alabaster DePlume - Instrumentals Hildegard von Bingen - O Nobilissima Viriditas Francisco de Penalosa - Missa Ave Maria Peregrina Carlo Gesualdo - Responsoria 1611 Dirty Projectors - Five EPs Sonic Boom - All Things Being Equal Brother Peter Broderick - Blackberry Richard Horowitz - Eros Of Arabia Duncan Trussell Family Hour Cocteau Twins in the bath

Books/comics Alexander Tucker - Entity Reunion II Derek Jarman - Chroma Stephen Harrod Buhner - Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm The Penguin Book Of Irish Poetry - edited by Patrick Crotty The Gospel Of Ramakrishna - translated by Swami Nikhilananda Lucretius - De Rerum Natura Plotinus - Enneads Ram Dass - Grist For The Mill Lisa Brown - Phantom Twin

Other Fasting / meditation / macrodosing Walks in freshly coppiced woodland (for the smell mainly). Plants / Foraging / Growing Traditional ferments Douglas Sirk movies Mandolorian Writing songs on the piano Rediscovery of Kenneth Graham via my kids

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Karl O’Connor (Regis)

01.Wolfgang Press - Unremembered, Remembered 02. Klara Lewis - Ingrid Live at Fylkingen 03. Jesu - Terminus 04. Dave Ball - Leeds Poly Demos 1979 05. Edwin Pouncey - Rated Sav X (the Savage Pencil Skratchbook) 06. The Bug - In Blue 07. New Order - Power,Corruption and Lies ( Writing Sessions  ) 08. JG Thirlwell and Simon Steensland - Oscillospira 09. FM Einheit and Andreas Ammer - Hammerschlag 10. Thurston Moore - By The Fire 11. Body Stuff - Body Stuff 3 12. Ann M Hogan - Honeysuckle Burials 13. Rob Halford - Confess (Autobiography)

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Caleb Braaten (Sacred Bones Records)

Shirley Collins Hearts Ease Dehd Flowers Of Devotion Duma Duma Bob Dylan Rough and Rowdy Ways Green-House Six Songs for Invisible Gardens John Jeffery Passage Drew McDowall Agalma Sweeping Promises Hunger For a Way Out Colter Wall Western Swing & Waltzes and Other Punchy Songs Woods Strange to Explain

My Favorite 90’s Nostalgia Movie Rewatches

Colors Ghost Dog Menace II Society The Player Rounders Safe Starship Troopers Trees Lounge Vampires Waiting For Guffman

Most Culturally Bankrupt Year : 1997

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Charlie Looker

(composer, Psalm Zero, Extra Life, Seaven Teares)

Ten Things That Didn’t Happen in 2020

1.  I didn’t write a ton of new music. Don’t get me wrong, I wrote some. I always do. But mostly I focused on my new YouTube channel, essays, and on getting old recordings released. I haven’t even been working a day-job so I thought I was going to write my next Ring Cycle, but I really didn’t find Covid inspiring.

2.  Trump wasn’t re-elected. Cool.

3. I didn’t lose anyone to Covid. I am, of course, profoundly grateful for this. But I feel pretty embarrassed remembering group-texting ten friends in March, “We are all going to see a loved one die. Every single one of us. Don’t kid yourselves”. I can get hysterical, and that was somewhat irresponsible of me.

4.  No revolution happened. I don’t mean to be smug or cynical, or to belittle anyone’s participation in the protests. But, as far as I can tell, nothing happened in 2020 that promises to reduce police brutality or human suffering of any kind. We’ll see. That burning Minneapolis police station was exciting to watch at the time, if only on an aesthetic level.

5.  I have a stack of unread books I bought this year, just staring at me, with nary a crease among them. These include:

Adorno and Horkheimer, The Dialectic of Enlightenment (looks amazing, but I haven’t touched it) Marx, Grundrisse (it’s 1000 pages for fuck’s sake. Amazon also accidentally sent me two copies, and its double presence in the stack is just comical) Reza Negarestani, Intelligence and Spirit (the first 15 pages blew my mind, then my mind blew it off)

6.  I didn’t settle into living in LA. I moved here six months before Covid and I was just starting to cultivate some friendships and play shows. This was quashed and I still feel like I still live in New York. I still barely know the layout of the city here.

7.  No brand-new buzzy musical artists burst onto the scene, that I can recall. No new hyped micro-genre of the moment. There was just no way for there to be a hot new trend. I’d say that was refreshing, but it wasn’t.

8.  Tyson’s return was not awesome. Two minute rounds, ended in a draw. I’ve been getting way into boxing this past year. This fight was a bummer. I’m looking forward to Mayweather vs Logan Paul (LOL) because we know it’s comedy ahead of time.

9.  For three weeks in July, I didn’t do a single thing other than watch street fight compilations on YouTube and Worldstar. That’s just grim.

10.  There were no school shootings in March. Apparently, this was the first March with no school shootings since 2002. Not a single 7th grader got a hand job in March either. I cannot begin to imagine what it’s like to be a kid now.

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Chuck Bettis

https://chuckbettis.com

Other People's Music released this year:

Coil "Musick to Play in the Dark" (Dais)

Duma "s/t" (Nyege Nyege Tapes) Twig Harper "External Boundless Prison/ in 4 parts EP" (self-release) I.P.Y. (Ikue Mori, Phew, YoshimiO) "I.P.Y." (Tzadik) Kill Alters "A2B2 Live Stream 11/13/2020" (self-release) Krallice "Mass Cathexis" (self-release) Lust$ickPuppy "Cosmic Brownie" (self-release) Doug McKechnie "San Francisco Moog: 1968-72" (VG+ Records) Merlin Nova "Boo!" (self-release) Omrb "Milandthriust, The Graths of Mersh" (self-release) Akio Suzuki & Aki Onda "gi n ga" (self-release) Yoth Iria "Under His Sway" (Repulsive Echo) Wetware "Flail" (Dais)

My own music released this year:

collaborations

Chatter Blip "Microcosmopolitan" (Contour Editions) Matmos "The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form" (Thrill Jockey) Reverse Bullets  "Dreampop Dsyphoria" (self-release) Snake Union "live at Roulette" (self-release) Snake Union w/ Hisham Bharoocha, Bonnie Jones, Heejin Jang, Matthew Regula "Three Arrows" (Rat Route) Thomas Dimuzio "Balance" (Gench Music) YoshimiO & Chuck Bettis  "Live at the Stone" (Living Myth)

solo Chuck Bettis "Arc of Enlghtenment"  (Living Myth) Chuck Bettis "Motion Parallax"  (Living Myth)

compilation Various Artist "Polished Turds Vol.1" (Granpa)

Music Books read this year

"Intermediary Spaces" by Eliane Radigue/Julia Eckhardt (Umland) "Ennio Morricone In His Own Words" by Ennio Morricone/Alessandro De Rosa (Oxford University Press) "Free Jazz In Japan: A Personal History" by Soejima Teruto (Public Bath Press) "Rumors of Noizu: Hijokaidan and the Road to 2nd Damascus" by Kato David Hopkins (Public Bath Press)

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Maya Hardinge

(musician / artist)

list of things i liked this year

first ever solo road trip through new mexico and Texas right before lockdown experiencing manhattan with no cars on the road . having a car to escape in to nature. (which i craved so much) walks and bike rides with friends… FRIENDS! The web site ‘workaway’ that helped me feel that there were options for escape. playing games weekly on zoom during lock down teaching yoga weekly on zoom. Witnessing and being part of the BLM protests. witnessing and being part of the demise of T sitting on my couch at 6am drinking a cup of tea, appreciating my apt. making time to meditate. halloween without tourists .

some music I’ve bought and/or enjoyed this year Elvis Perkins-Black Coat Daughter Patricia Kokett -Soi soi Henning Christiansen - OP201 Bryce Hackford- Safe Svitlana Nianio and Oleksander - Snayesh yak? rozkazhy Brannten schnure - Sommer im Pfirsichhain Killing Joke - Nighttime David Shea - Tower of mirrors Shakey - Shakey Woodford halse tapes Coil - Musick to play in the dark

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BJ Nilsen

sound artist / composer

Work 2020

Despite Covid 19 lots of things actually did happen.

In Feburary I visited the only active nuclear plant in The Nederlands as part of my "Expanded Field Recording” project together with SML. In March revisited the Acousmonium at the Elevate Festival in Graz with an additional trip deep inside the Schlossberg recording old mining trains. In March and April I did two daily recording projects “Pending and Auditory Scenes” - both of Amsterdam during lockdown. In May did my first Zoom field recording workshop with the CAMP project. In June & July  two research trips in Waldviertel, Austria with Franz Pomassl. In August recorded bells and organs in 10 different churches around Amsterdam for Jacob Lekkerkerker. In September recorded Kali Malone at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam. Performed at Heart of Noise Festival in Innsbruck and A4 in Bratislava. Also went ice-skating for first time in 20? Years. In November and December I travelled to Jeju island to record field recordings for a project by Femke Herregraven for the Gwangju Biennale, commissioned for 2021. Did lots of gardening, released two tapes “Call it Philips, Eindoven” and “Zomer 2020” with Sigtryggur Berg Sigmarsson. NOW! Looking forward to 2021.

http://bjnilsen.info https://soundcloud.com/bjnilsen/sets/auditory-scenes-amsterdam

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Vicki Bennett

(People Like Us)

Negativland - True False https://negativland.com/products/truefalse-cd (this came out last year but is so THIS year) Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Ways https://www.bobdylan.com/albums/rough-and-rowdy-ways/ The Soft Pink Truth - We from Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase https://thesoftpinktruth.bandcamp.com/album/shall-we-go-on-sinning-so-that-grace-may-increase Carl Stone - Stolen Car https://unseenworlds.bandcamp.com/album/stolen-car Porest - Sedimental Gurney https://porest.bandcamp.com/album/sedimental-gurney Matmos - The Consuming Flame: Open Exercises in Group Form https://matmos.bandcamp.com/album/the-consuming-flame-open-exercises-in-group-form Domenique Dumont - Miniatures De Auto Rhythm https://antinoterecordings.bandcamp.com/album/atn044-domenique-dumont-miniatures-de-auto-rhythm The The - See Without Being Seen https://www.thethe.com/product/see-without-being-seen-cd/ Ciggy de la Noche - Hold Tight HMRC https://soundcloud.com/ciggydelanoche/hold-tight-hmrc Neil Cicierega - Mouth Dreams http://www.neilcic.com/mouthdreams/

and my details: http://peoplelikeus.org/ https://peoplelikeus-vickibennett.bandcamp.com/ pic: http://peoplelikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Welcome-Abroad-promo3-2-scaled.jpg

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DJ Food

Music - Type 303 - Sticky Disco / Analogue Acidbath 7" (45 Live) The British Space Group - The Ley of the Land CD (Wyrd Britain) Squarepusher - Be Up A Hello LP / Warp 10 NTS mix (Warp) dgoHn - Undesignated Proximate (Modern Love) LF58 - Alterazione LP (Astral Industries) Robert Fripp - Music For Quiet Moments series (DGM) Run The Jewels - RTJ4 (BMG) Simf Onyx - Magenta Skyline / The Unresolved 7" (Delights) Luke Vibert - Modern Rave LP (Hypercolour) JG Thirlwell & Simon Steensland - Oscillospira (Ipecac) Aural Design - Looking & Seeing 7" / DL (Russian Library) Luke Vibert - Rave Hop (Hypercolour) Clipping. with Christopher Fleeger - Double Live (Sub Pop) APAT - Terry Riley's 'In C' performed on Modular Synthesizer (YouTube) Field Lines Cartographer - The Spectral Isle LP (Castles In Space) Jane Weaver - The Revolution of Super Visions single (Fire Records) King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - K.G. LP (Flightless) Humanoid - Hed-Set - forthcoming on (De:tuned)

Film / TV - Inside No.9 (BBC) What We Do In The Shadows Season 2 (Netflix) Tales From The Loop (Amazon) Keith Haring - Street Art Boy (BBC) John Was Trying To Contact Aliens (Netflix) The Social Dilemma (Netflix) The Mandalorian (Season 2) (Disney+) Long Hot Summers - The Style Council documentary (Sky Arts) Zappa (Alex Winter)

Books / Comics / Magazines Confessions of a Bookseller - Shaun Bythell (Profile books) The Often Wrong - Farel Dalrymple (Image Comics) Edwin Pouncey - Rated SavX (Strange Attractor Press) Jeffrey Lewis - Fuff (all issues - really late to the party on this one) Rian Hughes - XX - A Novel, Graphic (Picador) Cosey Fanni Tutti - Art, Sex, Music (Faber) Caza - Kris Kool (Passenger Press) Dan Lish - Egostrip Vol.1 Electronic Sound magazine Decorum - Jonathan Hickman & Mike Huddleston (Image) John Higgs - Stranger Than We Can Imagine Simon Halfon - Cover To Cover (Nemperor)

Very few exhibitions or shows this year for obvious reasons

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[frankensteined]

DEPUTY ROXANNE BAILEY (made using this template, edited to add/remove some stuff like body temperature who needs that)

BASIC INFORMATION

FULL NAME: roxanne bailey (no middle name~) PRONUNCIATION: rox-ann bay-lee MEANING: roxanne means “dawn/dawn of day” or “bright, radiant one” (which i did not know until right now!) REASONING: she was named after her father’s baby sister, who passed away when she was four years old (her father had been eight at the time). NICKNAME(S): roxie, rox, deputy/dep, rook/rookie (by the entire hope county sheriff’s department), “kid” (by dutch), shorty (by unexpected bff sharky boshaw, though he, along with most of her allies, tend to stick with “roxie”), brosenkrantz (by hurk jr, after a very intense debate over which of them was brosenkrantz and which was guildenstern), Various Terms Of Endearment from adelaide (but she calls everyone by those names so it doesn’t really count) re: the seeds and how they address her: • jacob’s taken to condescendingly calling her “precious”. as in, he did not take her seriously at first, so her attempts at bravado when they first met were greeted with a patronizing “aw, that’s cute. that’s just...precious.” so now he calls her ‘precious’ instead of ‘deputy’ half the time and she hate hate hates it.  • joseph has a way of saying her first name that somehow makes her feel like he’s the one that gave it to her, so she prefers him to use “deputy” as well. it makes her feel too exposed, otherwise.  • it doesn’t matter what john calls her; it always sounds like he’s playing with the name like it’s a toy she can’t get back from him.    • and faith asked during their first encounter if she could use ‘roxie’ for her “like we’re friends”, so even though that’s just her regular nickname, the way faith uses it always feels a little like a trap. or an invitation. roxie isn’t sure which is worse, especially since she isn’t entirely sure that it isn’t both.  

PREFERRED NAME(S): “just...anything but what the seeds call me. or the way they call me. ..you know what i mean.” BIRTH DATE: april 10, 1987  AGE: 31 (circa fc5 time, set in 2018) ZODIAC: aries GENDER: female PRONOUNS: she/her ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: biromantic SEXUAL ORIENTATION: bisexual NATIONALITY: american CURRENT LOCATION: hell hope county, montana LIVING CONDITIONS: UHHHHHH....currently not. awesome??? (”occasionally, i’ll find a house that hasn’t been riddled with bullet holes that i can rest in for a couple of hours? that’s fancy.”) often crashes either in fall’s end or nick rye’s house, but will catch a few hours of sleep at various locations that she’s helped liberate when she’s not in that area. nothing has become a sort of “home” for her yet, though. pretty much, as soon as she finds a place with a working shower she’ll plop down for a bit to recuperate and then moves on. likes to talk/joke about moving into the seed ranch now that it’s out of john’s hands, but also worries that if she does that he’ll harm hudson worse than he already has, out of revenge (so for now it’s just stops there to do laundry and shower and that’s probably pushing her luck enough).  TITLE(S):  junior dep-yoo-tee with the hope county sheriff’s department 

BACKGROUND

BIRTH PLACE: america  HOMETOWN: gunnison, colorado  SOCIAL CLASS: lower-middle class EDUCATION LEVEL: high school graduate; was attending columbia unversity on a scholarship (studying psychology), but didn’t complete her program  FATHER: jameson “jim” bailey -- owner of a local hardware store in gunnison MOTHER: elizabeth “liza” bailey (nee wright) -- high school art/music teacher SIBLING(S): none BIRTH ORDER: only child! CHILDREN: hahahaha no  PET(S): she grew up with a bunch of cats and no dogs, though she desperately wanted one. currently, her parents have four cats back home: ginger, roy, caesar, and bunny. in hope county, she has boomer (which is why she got so attached to him so quickly). there’s also cheeseburger and peaches, but they’re....not really pets, exactly (even if she pets them all the time)  OTHER IMPORTANT RELATIVES: lloyd bailey (paternal uncle, lives in missoula, montana), richard bailey (paternal grandfather, lives in flathead county, montana), sarah wright (maternal grandmother, lives in gunnison, colorado) PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS: michael lennon; ex-fiance. (he insisted on going by “len” which, now that she’s long out of that relationship, she jokes “should have been my first red flag that we weren’t going to last”. gets roasted pretty regularly by her friends in hope county over it after they find out: “your judgment’s been pretty good so far, but then again: you were gonna marry some dude who wanted people to call him len...so...”, etc)  ARRESTS?: nope! PRISON TIME?: ...not unless you could the literal cage that jacob’s kept her in~ DETAILED BACKGROUND:

• her father, jim, was born and raised in flathead county; he was the middle child, with an older brother and a younger sister, but lost his sister to an accident when she was four years old. he and his older brother became inseparable, and on his twenty-first birthday they set off on a roadtrip around the country, just to see what else was out there

• her mother was born out of wedlock to a woman who “found god” after she discovered that she was pregnant and was subsequently abandoned by her lover; liza wright never knew who her father was, as her mother refused to tell her, but she was assured that she was considered a gift, rather than a punishment.

•  jim and liza met when the brothers ventured through gunnison while on their trip; initially, it was lloyd who was interested in her, but jim’s soft-hearted demeanor was much more appealing in the face of his brother’s louder presence, and lloyd bowed out graciously. it quickly became a whirlwind romance, but liza called it off once he started talking about just staying in gunnison instead of completing his trip. jim told her he’d be back once he was done, but she didn’t believe him. she should have; he returned that fall, hoping she hadn’t moved on. she hadn’t. they resumed their romance, much to her mother’s displeasure, and were married the following spring (also to her mother’s displeasure)

• jim got work at the local hardware store, while liza began her career of teaching at the local high school. she’d planned on just teaching one subject, but due to a series of administrative mishaps she took on an additional role as the music teacher as well. within a year, though, she discovered that she was pregnant. they hadn’t planned on having kids so soon, but there was no helping it. jim ended up taking over the store, while liza worked until she couldn’t anymore. their daughter was born the next spring; they named her in honor of jim’s baby sister 

• roxanne was a healthy, happy baby, but her parents were finally beginning to come down from their whirlwind relationship, and began to worry about money more and more. they did their very best, and they loved their daughter, but roxanne grew up thinking that it was normal that her father was only around for dinner time at 6 pm, and that he was in bed by 8 o’clock. she grew up thinking that it was normal for mothers to stay up late into the night with work, so she’d need to put herself to bed from the earliest age she could. she grew up entertaining herself, but needing to be quiet about it, lest she wake her father, or interrupt her mother’s grading or lesson planning.

• she grew up lonely. roxanne has very vivid memories of sitting on the school steps, watching parents picking up their children one by one, and having to wait until well after everyone else had gone home before one of hers remembered to get her. she remembers being embarrassed as her teachers had to sit and wait with her, and she remembers being in third grade and deciding to try to just walk home on her own; naturally, she got lost, and was found crying on a corner by the sheriff. after he drove her home, arrangements were made for her grandmother to begin picking her up and keeping her at her house until one of her parents were done work

• sarah wright might have disapproved in her daughter’s choice of career, her choice of husband, and her choice in her granddaughter’s name (she had been hoping that liza would have at least given roxanne her name as a middle name!), but she wasn’t a cruel person, and she tried her best to make her home accommodating for her increasingly moody granddaughter. roxie would later go on to recall how her grandmother would refrain from bludgeoning her with “too much church talk”, but she would make comments such as “i’ve been praying for you lately, because i know you aren’t doing it for yourself”, and other such things that would sour her on faith in general, but she shrugs it off by adding “at least i wasn’t alone all the time”. it was her grandmother who suggested she try some sort of physical activity to get her frustrations out, and she enrolled her in dance lessons, which roxanne would stick with for much of her adolescence.

• by middle school, roxanne’s moodiness had given way to real, proper anger. she was angry at her father for always being at work instead of spending time with her. she was angry with her mother for prioritizing other people’s children over her own. she was angry with her teachers for innocent infractions, such as not realizing that casually suggesting that her parents could help her with her homework felt like the equivalent to open mockery to her. eventually, the anger turned into acting out, which eventually landed her in a chair opposite a children’s counselor; here, she’d actually begin to voice these issues, which delivered a much needed wake up call to her parents. they began to seek out ways to better balance their lives, and roxanne began to realize that she rather enjoyed being able to see where her anger was stemming from, and see where it was going. it was her first brush with understanding psychology, and that redirected her focus towards the subject once she hit high school.   

• speaking of which, things improved by the time she entered high school. it helped that she was now seeing her mother regularly in school, and she got a part time job as a waitress in the diner across the street from her father’s store so she could see him on his breaks, but beyond that she simply...had a place to put her energy now. more accurately: her goal was to get out of gunnison, and to study psychology. everything else seemed to fall into a strange, but welcome place in the background. her family began taking yearly trips to visit her uncle and grandparents in montana, where they would go hiking and camping, and her uncle would introduce her to bird watching. those trips became some of her fondest memories

 •  she worked her ass off in high school, academically-speaking, in order to have a shot at a scholarship. her mother’s position definitely helped her to at least get the audience she needed to apply for one, but roxie somehow, miraculously, managed to get one to her top school of choice mostly through her own merit. she left for columbia university, and while she was feeling wildly out of her depth there, she managed to attract a small bunch of (much more well-off) friends who saw her as a “project”. it wasn’t a flattering comparison, but by this point she had come to attach herself to anyone who actively appeared to choose her over others, and so she was inducted into their numbers and it shielded her from getting too in over her head, financially and emotionally 

• one member of that social circle was michael lennon, a bio-med student, son of a senator, asked that everyone just refer to him as “len”, who, for reasons she still doesn’t understand, decided that he needed to pursue her. he was far from her type, and she turned him down initially to focus on her classes, but that only increased his interest. despite herself, roxanne was flattered by the attention, even if he was self-important. eventually, they began dating, whereupon he introduced her to things like galas (which she hated), yachts (which she hated), and how to fly his own, personal, two-seater plane (ridiculous...but she kind of enjoyed that). eventually, he asked her to marry him, and, again, for reasons she still doesn’t understand, she accepted his proposal. (...it was because it was the ultimate “i choose you” display. that’s the reason, even if she doesn’t want to acknowledge that)  

• back home, her father’s struggles with money only increased, and her mother returned to throwing herself into her work at the school. it became the perfect storm needed for a man by the name of “cal jethrow” to waltz on in and offer jim help, only to turn around and con him out of everything. jim had thought that he was going to expand his business, and that could keep him afloat, but by the time that cal vanished (with his fakey-fake name), he was left with nothing. as soon as roxanne had all the details, she was already on a flight back home. her parents had told her not to return, but she ignored them. len had told her not to go, but she ignored him. her return home was bittersweet, but she was in a better position than any of them were to dig her heels in and try to help her parents back on their feet

• len told her that if she stayed, their engagement was off. with a detachment that really should have tipped her off to how little she actually loved him, roxie replied “then it’s off.” he then went on and told her to hold onto the ring “for when she came back around” (because he’s a jackass). she turned around and pawned it as soon as she got off the phone with him, so her father could keep the store running for the next month. with her life firmly turned on its head, she began looking for work that would help her help her parents, and found herself facing that same sheriff that had helped her all those years ago. she was trained up, and joined the ranks of the sheriff’s department as soon as possible.

• eventually, financial matters smoothed, somewhat, but issues between jim and liza only worsened. their relationship, which had never exactly been on anything other than shaky legs to begin with, had been strained to the point of fraying. they were forced to admit that they were struggling during another trip to montana, after jim’s mother’s passing, and roxie, attempting to keep her own anger in check, asked them what she could do to help beyond what she’d already done for them. they admitted that they were blaming themselves, and each other, for her returning home, so she suggested that she just stay in montana, with her uncle lloyd, for a while in order to give them space to figure their own shit out (direct quote). so, that’s what she did. 

• her uncle was (self-appointedly) tasked with helping her find a job in montana, initially in missoula, where he lived, but he heard from an old friend, earl whitehorse, out in hope county, that he was looking for a new deputy. lloyd and his niece debated the position, with him filling her in on hope county’s history, and the cult that was operating within it, framing it as nothing she couldn’t handle, given her psychology background.  “you think i can, what, deprogram people in a cult?” she asked.  “christ, no! you just won’t get scared from it, is all i’m sayin’! anyways, those seeds are keeping to themselves, so i hear. you probably won’t even see them very often. it’ll be breaking up barfights and handling domestics, just like you’re used to!”  she considered her uncle’s sales pitch. “alright,” she shrugged. “give your buddy a call. what’s the worst that can happen?”     

• freshly relocated to hope county, roxie found herself immediately taking a liking to sheriff whitehorse, as well a fellow deputies joey hudson and staci pratt. they welcomed her with genuine warmth, taking it upon themselves to give her rides to work, as well as good-natured hazing (referring to her exclusively as “rook” when it wasn’t just ‘rookie’, and teasing her when she decided to wear the nickname as a badge of honor, since she already was a bit of a dork as far as bird knowledge went). by the time us marshal cameron burke appeared, tasking them all to accompany him in his arrest of joseph seed, pratt and hudson had delivered her one last prank: they’d had her uniform shirt ordered with the name “rook” on it instead of “bailey”. roxie found it hilarious, but nancy, the dispatcher, assured her that she’d already placed a new order for a proper uniform shirt for her. roxie dramatically thanked her for being the only person to have her back. (*sad trombone noises*)

• on the way over to the compound, while on the helicopter, roxie was checking her phone for the briefest of refreshers on the project at eden’s gate. her mother attempted to call her, but she dismissed it, intending to call back later than night, after the arrest was done and they’d all gone home.

• and. well. ....here we are. (note: at the time that i’m writing this, roxie’s sitting just shy of full resistance points in all three territories, but she’s yet to confront any of the heralds in their final encounters yet. so, that’s where i’ll be imagining her at for the most part, because it’s a fun dynamic to be playing around with, in terms of her relationships with all the other characters)  

OCCUPATION & INCOME

PRIMARY SOURCE OF INCOME: does “deputy with the HCSD” even mean anything anymore? she isn’t exactly getting paid right now... SECONDARY SOURCE OF INCOME: ummm...selling pelts?  TERTIARY SOURCE(S) OF INCOME: UMMM....looting peggies? APPROXIMATE AMOUNT PER YEAR: $Who, cares, about, money, right, now. ?? CONTENT WITH THEIR JOB (OR LACK THERE OF)?: “...y’know...i think my job could be better these days...”  PAST JOB(S): waitress, deputy with the gunnison county sheriff department  SPENDING HABITS: she’s actually always been pretty frugal, but given her current situation she’s more willing to part with funds for the sake of better supplies (or clothing). mostly, her response has been “why are you making me pay for this when i’m helping--no. you know what? fine. just give me the keys to the helicopter.” (Capitalism Never Sleeps, roxanne)  MOST VALUABLE POSSESSION: a necklace with a gold wishbone pendant; her mother gave it to her when she was leaving for university, “for luck”. it has since absolutely gone missing thanks to the nightmare that is her current life in hope county, but she doesn’t know when she lost it. could have been when john had her in his bunker and he was prepping her for confession. could have been when she was being dragged into a cage at jacob’s behest. could have been while she was wandering around in some bliss-fueled hallucination. she doesn’t know, it does upset her, and, yes, she’s taking it as a sign that her luck’s running out.   

SKILLS & ABILITIES

PHYSICAL STRENGTH: 7/10 (she’s stronger than she looks and has decent enough upper arm strength to pull herself up ledges and ropes without struggling, but she’s also not going to win any brawls unless she ends up with an unexpected advantage) OFFENSE: 6/10 (knows how to fight, But Would Prefer Not To) DEFENSE: 8/10 (knows how to defend herself And Prefers That Very Much Actually) SPEED: 8/10 (outruns a lot of chosen in their helicopters. pisses them off. pisses the seeds off. feels good. ♥) INTELLIGENCE: 7/10 (she was a good student and has a good enough head on her shoulders, but generally isn’t too above average outside of her preferred interests) ACCURACY: depends on her condition 8/10 (generally, pretty good! she hates it!) AGILITY: 8/10 (can successfully walk in a straight line and run without tripping, can dance well, but has also slipped off a dock and fallen into the water while trying to be sneaky, so...) STAMINA: 5/10 (running on fumes most of the time these days, but still does just enough to keep going!) TEAMWORK: 9/10 (she prefers to work with others! the only times that she tries to go it alone is either if she thinks a situation is going to be too dangerous for them, or if she’s experienced something especially upsetting. she can quickly get called out of that funk by someone simply reaching out to her, however, so all in all she’s a really good team player) TALENTS: ignoring the practical skills she is honing during this ordeal (ie: picking locks), she has a stupid amount of knowledge about birds and how to get by in the woods, thanks to her uncle. she’s also a fairly skilled dancer (she was absolutely That Person who went out to clubs to actually just dance when she was in university), but generally just prefers to dance like an idiot to relieve stress. she’s a little bit crafty, too, thanks to her mother’s background in the arts, but her talents are limited to making non-fancy jewelry (though she will friendship bracelet the hell out of someone if given the chance)   SHORTCOMINGS: not so great with melee weapons/hand to hand sorts of situations and has been knocked on her ass too many times to count. she’s also not super wild on heights, so every time she needs to climb something high her heart’s firmly lodged in her throat.     LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: english is the only language she speaks fluently, alas DRIVE?: she’s a great driver! [footage not found] JUMP-STAR A CAR?: she can get it eventually, but definitely not on the first try. luckily, she travels with much more competent car-lifters :’) CHANGE A FLAT TIRE?: if she has to but there are so many abandoned vehicles everywhere is it really worth it when you can just take a new one?  RIDE A BICYCLE?: yes!  SWIM?: yep, and she’s had to do a lot of it lately, unfortunately. she’s always in need of dry socks :( PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: her mom tried to get her into playing instruments when she was younger, and she can pluck away at guitars well enough, but she never stuck with anything long enough to get really good at it PLAY CHESS?: hahahahahahaha no. BRAID HAIR?: yeah, but she can’t remember the last time she’s braided anyone’s hair (including her own) TIE A TIE?: yep! PICK A LOCK?: heck yes that was the second or third perk i unlocked for her

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

FACE CLAIM: krysten ritter EYE COLOR: hazel  HAIR COLOR: black HAIR TYPE/STYLE: shoulder length, straight. ties it back when it’s hot out.  GLASSES/CONTACTS?: thankfully unneeded (though she will wear sunglasses if she finds a cool pair)  DOMINANT HAND: right handed HEIGHT: 5′9″ WEIGHT: 130 lbs BUILD: slight EXERCISE HABITS: running and hiding and climbing and crouching and swimming and absolutely none of it is done for fun :) SKIN TONE: fair TATTOOS: none yet PEIRCINGS: she has her ears pierced once in each ear, but nothing more fun than that MARKS/SCARS: she’s absolutely covered in scars across her torso/arms/back/legs these days (or, if they aren’t scars already, they’re definitely going to be once they’ve healed up properly!). by far her most concerning scar is the one on her neck that came from a wolf attack, uncomfortably close to a spot that’d have been pretty fatal if she’d been less fortunate. she’s also got a burn scar on her upper left arm thanks to being too close to sharky being sharky (she doesn’t blame him, though. honest accident!)     USUAL EXPRESSION: lately it’s been like this when it comes to seeing what an epic shitstorm she’s landed herself in, but prior to this she was much more relaxed and oftentimes open, if not downright playful, with others. that side still shines through when she’s with her friends in hope county, but it’s getting harder and harder to feel that way the worse and worse it gets. still, she’s trying to keep it together.  CLOTHING STYLE: currently she’s stomping around in a tank top, jeans, combat boots, and a hat on, but even before coming here she was always a pretty basic jeans/t-shirt type of person. doesn’t get too attached to clothing these days, because it always gets damaged if not literally torn off her JEWELRY: the aforementioned necklace that’s gone missing, as well as some larger rings that she’s found in abandoned houses throughout the county that she keeps on to add extra insult to any punch she might need to deliver.  ALLERGIES: n/a DIET: ironically, she eats fresher food now than she did before coming here. her current diet mostly consists of whatever gets hunted/fished up and whatever canned foods she finds in prepper stashes around the county, though now that the resistance has reclaimed a number of farms she’s been able to enjoy more variety. is gonna storm john’s bunker for a chocolate bar someday, though, seriously PHYSICAL AILMENTS: just...basically perpetually injured at this point. always at least a little Fucked Up 

PSYCHOLOGY

JUNG TYPE: i took three different tests to see and in two of them she got the “hero/champion” archetype, so that’s what she is (as much as it pains her) MBTI: ENFP ENNEAGRAM TYPE: six “the skeptic” MORAL ALIGNMENT: neutral good TEMPERAMENT: choleric ELEMENT: fire PRIMARY INTELLIGENCE TYPE: interpersonal/intrapersonal MENTAL CONDITIONS/DISORDERS: she was neglected for much of her early upbringing, and with that came issues involving anger and attachment. while she was in a much healthier place recently, some of those issues are resurfacing as she’s feeling more and more pressure from dealing with This Mess  SOCIABILITY: prior to all of this, roxanne was slow to engage with others, but quick to befriend and trust them if they showed her an equal level of enthusiasm towards her. that’s essentially still the case, and she certainly excels when she’s in groups of people, but she’s becoming obviously more withdrawn and jumpy, finding it hard to accept praise or to feel like others are being honest with her when they thank her. but she still thrives off of that validation, so she keeps herself surrounded by other people as often as possible.   EMOTIONAL STABILITY: L O L it’s all over the fucking place these days. she has a hard time controlling her anger, but on the flip side she’s also become even more fiercely affectionate and protective towards her friends. some days, she will swallow back every feeling she has, and the next she might end up crying over any little thing. her emotional state is kind of like sharky’s homemade, duct tape reinforced flamethrower: it’s holding together, but you’re always gonna be a little worried that it’s gonna blow up and take out everyone around it under the wrong circumstances.  OBSESSION(S): for the sake of keeping sane, she’s 100% thrown herself into collecting the comics and bobbleheads and whatnot that she comes across. sometimes, roxie and her team will search a house that contains nothing but a baseball card for her collection and still consider it a success COMPULSION(S): she’s compelled to...break every tv set she comes across that’s broadcasting something she doesn’t want to see on it :) PHOBIA(S): shockingly, she’s developed an extreme fear of drowning! wonder where that came from. ADDICTION(S): she’s addicted to validation and having people choose her (going all the way back to her childhood, where her parents often did not prioritize her over others, despite their best efforts). this really, really isn’t something that she acknowledges in herself, but it does explain her responses to the accolades the people of hope county throw at her: even though she absolutely doesn’t think she deserves it, it keeps her going. she tells herself it’s because she has to keep going for them, and that’s true(!), but there’s a part of her that is sated in having others validate her. unfortunately, that also subconsciously influences her responses to the focus the cult has on her as well.      DRUG USE: recreationally in her youth, but hasn’t done any for some time. (unless you count helping aaron kirby/tweak out once by being his guinea pig) ALCOHOL USE: occasionally; more so when stressed, though she tries to keep a clear head as often as possible. still, if it’s there, she’s gonna drink it. PRONE TO VIOLENCE?: ........guilty.

MANNERISMS

SPEECH STYLE: she’s fairly blunt, but surprisingly playful even now. keeping a sense of glibness to her responses, hopefully, masks just how poorly she’s coping with all of this. it isn’t all a front, though: she does genuinely speak with levity when she’s with her friends, enjoying being able to banter and joke with them, because they bring out the best in her. she used to be much more mouthy towards her enemies, until she saw firsthand how her allies were faring in their clutches. now, she saves those kinds of comments for just the right level of tension. there’s no sense in antagonizing them verbally when they’re in a better position to hurt her friends than she is to save them.

ACCENT: american QUIRKS: • even before coming to hope county, she was someone you could count on to always have gum on her person, and that’s especially true now. she’ll use pieces of gum as a peace offering/extending of an olive branch to people who don’t quite trust her, figuring that even the grumpiest of people can be won over thanks to the promise of fresh breath these days.  •  she also tends to “ask permission” of her animal companions before doing something dumb or reckless. if cheeseburger didn’t say no, then it’s fine, right? NERVOUS TICKS: fidgeting and picking at her hangnails  DRIVES/MOTIVATIONS: • from the beginning, her main drive was to understand herself, which fortunately branched out to understanding others. that’s how she came to understand and make peace with her parents, it’s what made her able to harness her own negative emotions (...usually), and it’s what made her think that she’d fare okay in hope county in the first place. she’s still trying to understand these people, as much as she is trying to survive them. •  she also, of course, wants a place to belong to. so much of what she grew up tolerating was in the name of being wanted and appreciated, and whenever she finds that it becomes dear to her, even if it isn’t necessarily a positive thing (ie: frickin’ len). thankfully, the friends she’s made here are quite happy to accept her into their numbers, so she doesn’t need to pull validation from elsewhere (even though...it’s out there, in some twisted form)  • also, revenge? vengeance? not a positive goal, but!! it’s in there, simmering! FEARS: she fears so much lately it’s easier to list what she isn’t scared of, but obviously the biggest one is failing everyone that’s counting on her. it’s dying here. it’s her own mind, thanks to jacob. it’s joseph. but also, it’s turkeys, because those assholes are bloodthirsty. POSITIVE TRAITS: roxie is loyal to a fault, and absolutely fails any attempt she makes to turn her back on someone that she could help. she’s genuinely affectionate with her friends, and enjoys having inside jokes and opportunities to be silly with the people who like having her around, which, all in all, makes her a really good friend. she grew up without many of those, so she tries to be better than what she started with.      NEGATIVE TRAITS: roxie’s prone to flashes of anger and tends to hold grudges because of it. it makes her somewhat vengeful (part of why she leaned toward law enforcement was because she liked to imagine taking down the guy who conned her dad), which can sometimes make her take risks she really shouldn’t. she has a stubborn streak that borders on foolishness at times, and that makes her unable to just walk away when it would be better for everyone involved. she also does not handle loneliness well at all.

also she’s been turned into a brainwashed attack dog whenever jacob plays his gd song SENSE OF HUMOR: her own brand of humor is pretty dry/sarcastic/it’s-a-defense-mechanism, but in the right company she’ll lean into being silly/absurd and goofing off a fair bit (traveling with sharky and hurk together really brings that side out the most often, though nick and adelaide can get that too. she at least tries to be more serious with grace and jess, but between the three of them she’s probably the most likely to goof off). roxie does find sharky and hurk’s nonsense genuinely hilarious about....85% of the time, and although adelaide’s style doesn’t match her own at all, it still cracks her up a lot of the time as well (in an incredulous way). DO THEY CURSE OFTEN?: only when stressed :) which :) i mean... :) :) :)

FAVORITES

ACTIVITY: dancing ♥ ANIMAL: birds (except turkeys. she knew true betrayal when a wild turkey first attacked her)  BEVERAGE: no one believes her when she says this, but it’s really just any herbal tea! COLOR: the kind of deep orange you associate with autumn FOOD: blueberries! she likes blueberry flavoured anything. (least favourite: peas) FLOWER:  peonies  (least favourite is.....bliss flowers. obviously. but also roses, because she associates them with cheap apologies) GEM: citrine HOLIDAY: halloween! (all about that fall aesthetic) MODE OF TRANSPORTATION: cars, though she’s getting less rammy with big fuckoff trucks in hope county :) (least favourite is probably the quad because she. tends to crash them.) MOVIE: the wizard of oz (least favourite: moulin rouge, entirely because of “el tango de roxanne”. or, more specifically, how it influenced people to say her name for like five years after the movie came out)  SCENERY: as shitty as her situation is, montana really is beautiful, and she appreciates a lot of the natural sights around when she’s moving from place to place SCENT: fresh laundry is always a good one, but she’ll be the first person to admit that a really nice cologne or perfume will turn her head quickly. it’s a weakness. (least favourite is....uh. the smell of burning bodies, which wasn’t something she’d ever expect to have firsthand experience with, but here we are.) SPORTS TEAM: “uh....go cougars?” WEATHER: the kind you get right before a storm is rolling in, though she’s also fond of a good ol’ thunderstorm as well. (least favourite is snowy anything. she does not enjoy winter) VACATION DESTINATION: ironically, it used to be camping in montana. now it’d be...literally anywhere but here.

ATTITUDES

GREATEST DREAM: being able to see her parents again GREATEST FEAR: “i just don’t want to die here.”  MOST AT EASE WHEN: she’s taken to setting some time aside for herself to play with boomer, or to lounge against cheeseburger when there’s some precious downtime. sometimes peaches will come lay across her lap then, too, and there’s something really reassuring about having these apex predators just relaxing with her, knowing that they’ll keep her safe.  also, the jukebox at the spread eagle often gets hijacked after really stressful days, and being able to dance for a bit without worrying about an airstrike or something interrupting does wonders for putting her at ease. sometimes, her friends will put the music on for her and force her to dance with them when she’s in an especially bad funk, and it’s hard to really stay up in her own head when she sees them go to that much trouble for her sake ♥ worth noting: most of this dancing is not, strictly speaking, good, but it is ridiculous and fun. (and that’s valid!) LEAST AT EASE WHEN: joseph seed is making very intense eye contact with her (which is the only way he seems to make eye contact with anybody, in his defense) WORST POSSIBLE THING THAT COULD HAPPEN: she literally can’t think of anything at this point that could make things worse for her, save a literal, actual apocalypse hahaha :( BIGGEST ACHIEVEMENT: retaking the hope county jail and saving sheriff whitehorse. having him back has been the first real sense of normalcy to return to her life, and was the push she needed to press on towards trying to locate and rescue hudson and pratt.  BIGGEST REGRET: ...failing thus far to save either hudson or pratt. in joey’s case, roxie can sort of forgive herself, because she wasn’t in the absolute best position to be able to rescue her, but having been so close to her that she could see the tear tracks on her cheeks while john was wheeling her out of the room still weighs on roxie even now. she can’t stop to think about what she left hudson to deal with in there without feeling sick.  in staci’s case, the feelings of regret and guilt are even worse because they’d come so close to being able to escape jacob together, but it was never enough. pratt had saved her, and he was left behind to suffer for it. she’s taken to smashing every tv she comes across that’s looping that video of him being left to die.    MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT: probably this moment when she first met hurk. it was a Class Act. BIGGEST SECRET: the seeds get to her. they’re in her head, she can’t shake certain things that each of them have said to her, and it all really boils down to the fact that a part of her -not even a part that she wants to recognize or acknowledge - thrills at the attention they have fixed on her. that part of her that yearns to be a priority is grateful, in a twisted way, that she’s apparently worth more than just a bullet in the head to them. that’s the part of her that’s keeping her skirting between territories, rather than just finishing it with the heralds one by one. roxie doesn’t accept that that’s what’s happening to her, but if she’d just stop to really think about it...she’d see that it’s true.   • despite the warnings, she can’t help but...wonder if maybe faith is actually sincere but has been manipulated. if maybe she could be reasoned with. she doubts it, but roxie has to admit that hearing faith’s accusatory “i thought you were different!” made her feel. well. bad. (roxie’s totally wrong about her, and she’s been warned against faith by loads of people, but. oops.)  •  she isn’t....not attracted to john. like. aesthetically. it’d be an absolutely terrible idea, she would hate herself if it happened, and she loudly rejected both sharky and adelaide’s observations on their dynamic, so she’s not even thinking about it, but. ...well, anyway. that’s one of those take-it-to-the-grave secrets so shh  •  out of all of them, despite what everyone else has done to her, the one that’s gotten to the her the most, the one that scares her the most, the one that’s seen through her the most, is joseph 

TOP PRIORITIES: “stay alive, save my team, save my friends, save the rest of the county, if i can. stay alive some more, finish this, then sleep, for a long, long time.” 

[naturecoaster]

Spring Lake

As you drive to Spring Lake, a small community in Eastern Hernando County here in the Nature Coast region of west-central Florida, what you may be struck most by is the sense that you are no longer in Florida at all. As if through some magical combination of temperature (such as when it’s 74 degrees and breezy on a Spring day), low humidity, high blue cloudless skies, and the beautiful rolling-hill topography here atop the Brooksville Ridge, it will be like you have left Florida behind. The congested, flat, strip mall infested Florida of the U.S. 19 corridor through Pasco and Hernando Counties suddenly becomes a thing of the past, and for all you know you could be driving through the foothills of South Carolina into North Carolina and in a few hours the Blue Ridge Mountains will appear on the horizon in front of you. Indeed, as you summit a hill just north of the Spring Lake town limits an entire vista opens up in front you and hundreds of rolling acres and the crest of a second ridge await on the horizon to the north.

View from Boyett's Grove Citrus Attraction looking north. At first, you think you are in the highest point in Florida and then another ridge is seen on the horizon. Image by Barrett Hardy. You may be moved to stop to take a picture. If you stop at that very spot on the crest of that very hill, you won’t even have to pull onto the shoulder of the road. You can pull into the parking lot of Boyett’s Grove. Boyett’s Grove Citrus Attraction is an old-school Florida roadside tourist stop in Spring Lake that dates back to the middle of the 20th Century. Here, despite the hills, you will know you’re in Florida.

Boyett's Grove Citrus Attraction is located on the top of the hill. It's a gift fruit shipper that has created an old-school Florida roadside tourist attraction. Image by Diane Bedard. Originally a functioning citrus grove, Boyett’s Citrus attraction was born in the early 1960s when a hard freeze damaged many of the citrus trees that provided the family that owned them with a living. They were forced to find an innovative way to preserve the remaining trees and keep the business afloat.

Boyett's Grove in the 1960s. Image courtesy of Kathy and Jim Oleson. What they created is a surreal mixture of Florida roadside kitsch, bonafide animal park, and functioning citrus farm. In the attraction’s gift shop, you can buy wildflower honey by the gallon, chocolate alligators, oranges and grapefruit, and even Grape Nehi Soda if you’re so inclined.

As Florida gift fruit shippers, Boyett's Grove has a great selection of Florida citrus that you can have shipped to friends and family, or pick some up for your table. Image by Diane Bedard.

Spring Lake, Florida Community

The community of Spring Lake was established in the middle of the 19th Century partly through Armed Occupation Act land grants. The Armed Occupation Act of 1842 was designed to encourage settlers to occupy Florida land seized during the Seminole Wars. Any man over the age of 18 could apply for up to 160 acres of land on the condition that he keep and bear arms and be prepared to man local militias in the event of any disturbances that may arise. Many such grants were made of fertile land here along the high country of Florida’s Brooksville Ridge. Some of Hernando County’s oldest and most prominent families called Spring Lake and the surrounding area home, including the Hope family, the Howell family, the Lykes family, the Lee family, and the Rogers family. Each of those family names ring out in discussions of Brooksville's history. Many landmarks and roads are named for them today.

The Spring Lake United Methodist Church was founded in 1884. Image by Barrett Hardy. Spring Lake United Methodist Church By the late 19th Century, the community of Spring Lake had established the Spring Lake Methodist Church, which is still active today. By the late 1880s, a public school was established that met in the church until 1889 when an early settler to the Spring Lake area donated land on which a school was built. This three-room school welcomed students for thirty years before being torn down to make room for a larger school better able to serve the community. Spring Lake Community Center National Historic Site The community of Spring Lake is also home to a National Historic Site. The Spring Lake Community Center was built in 1939 as a joint venture between the Spring Lake Women’s Club and the Hernando County Board of County Commissioners. It was as constructed using labor supplied by FDR’s New Deal program called the Works Progress Administration.

Sylvia Dukes dresses up for the Spring Lake Community Center Open House in 2019. Image courtesy of Spring Lake Community Center. The Spring Lake Community Center is considered to be one of the United States’ finest surviving examples of rubble stone architecture. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. When it was constructed, the Spring Lake Community Center not only provided a venue for events within the community itself, but also provided additional facilities to the school such as indoor plumbing, a lunchroom, and a library. The center continues to function to this day and is a center of community activity within Spring Lake. It is also available for event rentals. Florida is flat. There’s no other way to describe it. The Brooksville Ridge In fact, nearly 30% of peninsular Florida’s land barely rises above sea level. That’s what makes the Brooksville Ridge, which runs from the very southern edge of Citrus County just north of Brooksville down the eastern third of Hernando County into the northeast quadrant of Pasco County, so remarkable. It is formed by a layer of rich, fertile soil covering a layer of limerock underneath. This layer of soil prevented the dissolution and erosion of the limerock, preserving the elevation of the ridge, and making the area ideal for farming. The Brooksville Ridge boasts large hammocks of live oaks, incredible views, acres of farmland, limerock caves north of the city of Brooksville, and areas of lower elevation that over time have become lakes and ponds. One such lake is the namesake of the community of Spring Lake itself.

Spring Lake is surrounded by hills, making it easy to forget you are in Florida at all. There is a beautiful cemetery where you can explore the lives and deaths of early residents through reading their gravestones. Image by Barrett Hardy. Just east of Spring Lake Highway on Old Spring Lake road, the lake appears as you come down a gentle slope. The lake is flanked by native grasses and oak hammocks. Several houses with large rolling yards sit atop the surrounding hills. This is another example of the terrain in this region that’ll make you forget you’re in Florida at all. The eclectic, almost hallucinatory hodgepodge of Boyett’s Grove Citrus Attraction notwithstanding, Spring Lake offers little to nothing for the day tourist to do, which is why the place itself is so absolutely charming. It offers one-tank day-trippers an opportunity to free themselves of the relentless and typical get-up-and-go, endure-crowds, stand-in-line, and lay-like-sardines-on-a-crowded-beach offerings of most of Florida’s tourist attractions.

The gift shop at Boyett's Grove and Citrus Attraction is an eclectic hodgepodge of Old Florida gifts and souvenirs. Image by Diane Bedard When is the last time you just got in the car with a loved one for no other reason than to take a scenic drive to someplace offering nothing to do? When is the last time you hopped in the car, put on music you love, rolled down the windows and cranked back the sunroof just to drive and enjoy views that are available in very few places in Florida? When is the last time you stopped at a roadside grove stand and bought some fresh Florida citrus and a chocolate alligator? Places like the community of Spring Lake and Boyett’s Grove Citrus Attraction are quickly becoming a thing of the past in Florida. Floridians and the visitors that come here seem to value the hustle and bustle of our state’s big-time tourist attractions more than the quiet, sleepy throwbacks of old Florida. Some of us, though, still get chills when looking from the crest of one ridge across acres of rolling farmland towards the crest of a ridge in the distance. If you’re one of those people, fill the tank with gas, grab a paper straw for your bottle of Grape Nehi, and head to Spring Lake some morning when the sky is clear. It is a fulfilling and beautiful way to spend a day. Read the full article

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: No Point of View Is the Best View of All: Artists Working Between 1952–65, Many of Whom Are Forgotten

Jean Follett, “3 Black Bottles” (1958), mixed media on wood, 11 2/3 x 19 1/2 x 1 3/4 inches, The American College of Greece Art Collection, Athens, gift of Takis Efstathiou Photo: Nicholas Papananias

Once upon a time, the art world — at least as it existed in downtown New York in the 1950s — was diverse in myriad ways. I mean, when is the last time you went to a big group show and came across a gaggle of Asian sounding names: Yayoi Kusama, Leo Valledor, Yoko Ono, Nanae Momiyama, Robert Kobayashi, Walasse Ting, and Tadaaki Kuwayama. How many Asians were included in The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World, which was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (December 14, 2014–April 5, 2015)? What happened between the mid-1960s and the present, a little more than a half-century? Did Asians stop painting and go into computer programming? Hollywood erases Asians faster than you can say anime, and so does the art world, it seems.

These are just some of the questions spurred by the exhibition, Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952-1965 at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University (January 10–April 1, 2017), which was curated by Melissa Rachleff, who has done an amazing and thorough job.

Rachleff deserves our thanks for amassing a wide and wild range of material, from art works to documentary photographs to gallery ephemera. She has managed to allot discrete areas to a variety of artist-run galleries and groups in what is a difficult space to organize. Rachleff seems to have left no stone unturned. Driven by curiosity, this is curatorial practice at its best.

For anyone who has come across the name Jean Follett, you can see two wall pieces by her in this exhibition, one of which is in a little-known collection in Athens, Greece. Follet, who studied with Hans Hoffman, began applying layers of paint to found objects placed in a shallow box, to which she added more objects. They are shadow boxes but they are not. They don’t look like anything else. They are hybrid works, but that term does not touch upon the strangeness of Follet’s art.

Follet was included in three shows at the Museum of Modern Art between 1959 and 1963, including The Art of Assemblage (October 4 – November 12, 1961), organized by William C Seitz. That catalog was the first place I saw her work, along with a number of other artists, including Bruce Conner, Jess, and Robert Mallary, alongside Lee Bontecou, Joseph Cornell, Marcel Duchamp, Jasper Johns, Marisol, and Robert Rauschenberg. That kind of openness to different aesthetic positions does not happen anymore.

I don’t know what happened to Follet, but I have long been curious about her work, and was more than happy to see it. Forty years ago, Thomas B. Hess mentioned her in passing in a review of the painter David Budd that appeared in New York Magazine (March 7, 1977). Here is the kicker line from that review:

Some lost their way. Where are Jean Follet and Felix Pasilis? A few died before their time (Gabe Kohn, Sam Goodman, Gandy Brodie). Most have persevered, however, in lives of not quite quiet desperation. They teach a bit, exhibit now and then, while slowly piecing together the historical puzzle that was scattered so brusquely about fifteen years ago, when it seemed, as if on a Monday, they were respected members of a cultural milieu and then, the next Friday, practically the whole art Establishment crossed the street to avoid having to say hello.

Hale Woodru, “Blue Intrusion” (1958), oil on canvas, 70 x 40 inches, Grey Art Gallery, New York University Art Collection, anonymous gift, 1958.35. Art (© Estate of Hale Woodru /Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY)

Hess writes that this sweeping change took place around 1962. All the artists he mentions have work in the NYU exhibition. I would venture that most are hardly known and the probability is high that none of them have something currently on display in a New York museum.

If 1962 is the dividing line between one art world and what we seem to have inherited — the moneyed domain of the big, slick, well-produced, and shiny, not to mention the big, industrial, and tastefully rusted — Inventing Downtown will bring you back to the period before the “art Establishment crossed the street.” It is before the art world became arty.

Between 1952 and ’65, the years covered by the exhibition, every kind of scene seemed to be percolating in a rather small geographic area of Manhattan. The epicenter was East Tenth Street, where a bunch of artist-run galleries opened and Willem de Kooning had a studio. Ratleff smartly organizes the shows around artist-run galleries, alternative spaces, and groups. Some were short-lived. Spiral, a collective of African-American artists who met in Romare Bearden’s loft on Canal Street, was active from the summer of 1963 until 1965, and had one exhibition. They were trying to negotiate their relationship to race, Civil Rights, and aesthetics. It could not have been easy. Ratleff also includes the Green Gallery, whose “program,” according to the free brochure accompanying the exhibition, “resulted in the narrowing of aesthetic possibilities and the marginalization of many artists.” If she left any gallery or alternative scene out, I am unaware of it.

In addition to Follet, there were many artists whose work I hadn’t seen before. There were also many surprises from familiar artists, including a garish, Bonnard-inspired “Portrait of Frank O’Hara” (1953-54) by Wolf Kahn. It looks as if the poet is wearing a pink and orange Halloween mask. A few feet away, on the same wall, is a lovely “Portrait of Jane Freilicher” (1957) — a close friend of O’Hara’s — by Jane Wilson. We know the portraits of O’Hara done by Larry Rivers, Fairfield Porter, and Alice Neel, but this one was new to me.

There are also early works by Jim Dine, Dan Flavin, and Allan Kaprow before they became famous for making signature works. Flavin’s piece “Apollinaire wounded (to Ward Jackson)” (1959), is made from a crushed can surrounded by oil paint and pencil on Masonite, mounted on plaster on pine in a shallow box. The title is carefully incised into the paint in the upper left corner, while the red hole at the top of the crushed can refers to the poet’s head wound, which he got in World War I.

Dan Flavin, “Apollinaire wounded (to Ward Jackson)” (1959–1960), crushed can, oil, and pencil on Masonite, and plaster on pine, 13 1/2 x 19 3/8 x 7/8 inches, collection of Stephen Flavin (© 2016 Stephen Flavin/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York)

There are abstract paintings by the African-American artists Norman Lewis, Hale Woodruff, and Ed Clark, which tell us that the legacy of the 1960s is one of exclusion. That this exclusion began during the Civil Rights movement does not speak well of the art world.

The other thing that struck me is the diversity of the work. There is no hierarchy between figurative and abstract paintings, nor are there distinctions about materials or processes. The thickly painted “Heaven and Earth” (1960) by Alfred Jensen is diagonally opposite the thinly painted “Ada Ada” (1959) by Alex Katz. The former is filled with arcane symbols, while the latter depicts the artist’s wife twice, wearing a plain blue dress and matching blue shoes. While Hess never says what led up to the sea change in 1962, one cause seems to have been the advent of hierarchical thinking. So you have Donald Judd writing in his essay “Specific Objects” (1965):

The main thing wrong with painting is that it is a rectangular plane placed flat against the wall.

And while this might have influenced the thinking of a lot of people, it does not mean he is right: it means that he has a forceful viewpoint powerfully expressed in unequivocal terms. But you can also find the paintings of John Wesley at the Judd Foundation in Marfa, Texas, and so maybe he was not as much of an ideologue as some people want to believe and take comfort in, because it makes looking easier when you know what to look at. Then there is Clement Greenberg’s snobbish term, “Tenth Street Touch,” which dismissed a lot of artists, including many who did not use a loaded brush or paint the figure. There is the much-ballyhooed claim that art had to be objective, abstract, pure, and even universal — all of which are questionable standards. I think collectors also had something to do with what happened. Whatever the collectors Robert and Ethel Scull did for the art world, they were self-serving narcissists, as Andy Warhol’s portrait “Ethel Scull 36 Times” (1963) demonstrates. And, of course, there’s commerce, from rising rents to the escalating prices of what looks good on a big, immaculate wall — the “post-easel” picture.  These forces together helped produce the perfect storm. In some sense, the art world turned from a place of community to a place of authority.

Wolf Kahn, “Frank O’Hara” (1953‒1954), oil on canvas, 43 x 41 inches (courtesy the artist)

By bringing us back to the decade before the “art Establishment” decided what were the true, quantifiable markers of progress, Inventing Downtown reminds us that what we have now was not always the way it was. There are so many things to see and discover — from photographs of interactive paintings by Yoko Ono (Oscar Murillo, eat your heart out), to George Sugarman’s ‘Four Forms in Walnut” from 1959 (yes, you can carve wood and not be old-fashioned), to a strange and interesting “Self-Portrait in Fur Jacket” (1959) by Marcia Marcus (what happened to her?), to a group of gritty drawings by Emilio Cruz, Red Grooms, and Bob Thompson. Check out the work of Boris Lurie, who was in a concentration camp (1941-45), and then read about him and Sam Goodman and the NO! art movement in The Outlaw Bible of American Art (2015), edited by Alan Kaufman. This exhibition brings back a lot of what has been forgotten, overlooked, and thrown under the bus — no doubt with glee. It might not all be good but, to quote another statement that Judd made in “Specific Objects:”

A work needs only to be interesting.

By that standard, everything in this exhibition needed to be in this exhibition. The best thing you can do for yourself is go more than once. Buy the catalogue. Read the brochure while walking around both floors of the exhibition. Open your eyes and mind. Don’t miss the Lois Dodd painting of three cows hanging on the wall above the receptionist. I almost did.

Inventing Downtown: Artist-Run Galleries in New York City, 1952-1965 continues at the Grey Art Gallery, New York University (100 Washington Square East, Greenwich Village, Manhattan) through April 1.

The post No Point of View Is the Best View of All: Artists Working Between 1952–65, Many of Whom Are Forgotten appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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[omcik-blog]

New Post has been published on OmCik

New Post has been published on http://omcik.com/chinas-rf-properties-roars-back-into-the-spotlight-on-wanda-deals/

China's R&F Properties roars back into the spotlight on Wanda deals

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Once the leader of the elite group of developers known as the “Five South China Tigers”, Guangzhou R&F Properties (2777.HK) gradually became overshadowed by bigger beasts, but it’s now back in focus even as many rivals shy from the limelight.

The developer, with a market value of HK$52.5 billion ($6.7 billion), has grabbed international headlines over the past few weeks with two property deals linked to one of China’s richest men, Wang Jianlin, and his Dalian Wanda Group.

On Tuesday, R&F said it had teamed up with China’s CC Land (1224.HK) to buy Nine Elms Square in London in a 470 million pound ($606 million) deal. R&F stepped in after Wanda scrapped plans to buy the property, the latest setback for Wanda as Beijing tightens controls on overseas investment.

The purchase came just weeks after R&F bought 77 hotels from Wanda for 19.9 billion yuan ($3 billion), as part of a $9 billion restructured deal. The pair of deals has prompted some analysts to suggest the Hong Kong-listed company is a white knight of billionaire Wang’s property to cinemas conglomerate.

Wanda has become a target in China’s clampdown on capital outflows, and sources say Chinese banks have been told to stop providing funding for several of its overseas acquisitions in order to curb its appetite for offshore deals.

“Wang Jianlin and I are long-time friends,” R&F Chairman Li Sze Lim said at an earnings conference in Hong Kong on Tuesday. “We bumped into each other in an event in Beijing, and struck the deal after 20 to 30 minutes,” he said, referring to the hotel purchase in July.

Buying the hotels at a 40 percent discount showed Wang’s trust in R&F, he added.

If indeed it took less than 30 minutes to strike a $3 billion deal, the pair must certainly be well-acquainted. Sources have told Reuters Wanda approached R&F about taking on some of the assets from the initial deal with Sunac China (1918.HK) in order to speed up full payment.

Wanda has declined to comment further on R&F, but Wang has told a press conference last month the hotel deal is a win for all parties, being a “rare chance in a hundred years” for R&F to acquire the portfolio at a discounted price.   

HOTEL POWERHOUSE

A mathematics graduate, Li comes across as a modest and mellow businessman.

Traditionally a low-profile tycoon, the 60-year old was born and grew up in Hong Kong. He made his fortune from China’s real estate market in the 1990s when he first ventured into the urban redevelopment projects and construction of low-end apartments in southern China’s Guangzhou city.

Chairman of R&F Properties Li Silian speaks during a strategic cooperation signing ceremony with Dalian Wanda Group and Sunac China Holdings Ltd. in Beijing, China July 19, 2017. Picture taken July 19, 2017.Jason Lee

Hong Kong was still a British colony when Li started the company in 1994 with his mainland Chinese partner Zhang Li, who is now co-chairman and CEO of R&F.

Together with Country Garden (2007.HK), China Evergrande Group <3333.HK, Agile Group (3383.HK) and Hopson Development (0754.HK), the five Guangzhou-based property developers are commonly known as the “Five South China Tigers” for their aggressive business style.

In 2007, R&F ranked No.4 in terms of sales nationwide, but it slipped to 25th place in the first half of this year, trailing cross-town peers Country Garden and Evergrande, which ranked No.1 and No.3.

R&F’s active investment in commercial property, in contrast with the other four, had helped the company expand by diversifying its income base during the boom years.

But when the financial crisis hit in 2008, these assets weighed on R&F’s cashflow as their cash turnover is much slower than residential property.

Partnering with luxurious hotel management groups such as Hyatt Hotels (H.N) and InterContinental Hotels (IHG.L), R&F owned 34 high-end hotels across China prior to the deal with Wanda. Now, with 111 hotels in total, it has become the world’s biggest luxury hotel owner.

“The London deal could be more related to Wanda rather than its overseas expansion strategy, because it had rarely talked about plans to flex its muscles overseas”, said RHB Research analyst Toni Ho.

“The hotel deal with Wanda was a surprise to the market too, though it’s a good buy given its long history and asset size in hotel business. The deal would help its expansion and profitability.”

Indeed, Li told reporters on Tuesday overseas business accounts for only “single digits” of the group to keep risk contained.

The developer, which is awaiting a dual-listing in mainland China, has developments in Malaysia and Australia which accounted for 4 percent of R&F’s total contracted sales in the first six months of this year.

R&F added its footprint in the U.K. earlier this year after snapping up Nestle Tower in south London for around 60 million pounds and Vauxhall Square for 157.77 million pounds.

On Tuesday, the developer posted a 22 percent rise in core profit in the first six months to 2.1 billion yuan ($315.40 million), and it raised its full-year sales target to 80 billion yuan, 31 percent higher than the sales achieved last year.

Moody’s Investors Service described the results as weak, highlighting persistently high debt leverage as consistent with its negative outlook on the company’s credit rating.

Reporting by Clare Jim; Editing by Anne Marie Roantree and

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[nicoleboyle-blog]

It began with an investigation into Robert Frank’s The Americans. Arguably one of the most well known photography books. The Americans— Robert Frank The Book Due to Franks venture away from conventional photographic practice, he initially had a hard to securing an American Publisher. First Published in Paris, France in 1958 by Robert Delpire. It was included as apart of the Encyclopédie Essentielle series. Also included was writings by William Faulkner, Erskine Caldwell, Henry Miller, Simone de Beauvoir and John Stienbeck. In 1959 ‘The Americans’ was published by Grove Press (with the text removed from the original french edition). An Introduction by Jack Kerouac, a Beat Poet, was added along with simpler captions. Frank and Kerouac met outside a party one night in New York in ’57. After seeing some of Franks photos, Kerouac said “SureSure I can write something about these pictures,” giving us the introduction to the US edition of The Americans Monograph Images were selected by Frank. He edited his collection of 27,000+ down to about 1,000 work prints. Than he spread them across the floor of his studio and tacked them to the walls for a final edit. In the end he selected 83 Images. Copy in library, New Edition from 2008 Published by Steidl as a celebration of the Books 50th anniversary Frank himself supervised every aspect of this new edition, including approving every page that rolled off the presses. He even re-cropped many of the photos, usually including more of the image than before. A single image on the Right page, the caption is located on the adjoining left page. Often the captions are just the locations. Context With references from Walker Evans and and Edward Steichen, Frank applied for a Guggenheim fellowship proposing to create an "observation and record of what one naturalized American finds to see in the United States." Frank was Swiss Born bought a used Ford and headed out. Over two years, he road tripped around America, his family with him at times. During his trip, Frank shot 767 rolls of film yielding about 27,000 images. His trip included, New Jersey Chicago South Carolina New Orleans Detroit New York City Montana Los Angeles Pennsylvania Ohio Connecticut Nevada Florida New Mexico Arkansas He was thrown in Jail for three days after being stopped by the police who accused him of being a communist reasons—he was shabbily dressed, he was Jewish, he had letters about his person from people with Russian sounding names — he had foreign whiskey on him — his children had foreign sounded names (Pablo & Andrea) The Response to Book Unarguably revolutionized photography Kerouac said, “Robert Frank…he sucked a sad poem right out of America onto film, taking rank among the tragic poets of the world.” Ed Ruscha "I'd never seen anything like it,Robert Frank came out here and he just showed that you could see the USA until you spit blood.” Joel Meyerowitz "It was the vision that emanated from the book that led not only me, but my whole generation of photographers out into the American landscape in a sense — the lunatic sublime of America,” Jim Casper “I love the range of images Frank captured in the two years he took to make this book. He seems to have experienced the quintessential America of the mid 1950s. When you read the photos in this book, he takes you on a wild cross-country ride.. Article by NPR, Tom Cole 2009— “The Americans showed a different America than the wholesome, non confrontational photo essays offered in some popular magazines. Frank's subjects weren't necessarily living the American dream of the 1950s…”

After reading the introduction to The Americans, several times, I was interested in the author, Jack Kerouac. Following the theme of an American road trip, Kerouac’s On the road is an undeniable fit. “ The book was largely autobiographical and describes Kerouac's road-trip adventures across the United States and Mexico with Neal Cassady in the late 40s and early 50s, as well as his relationships with other Beat writers and friends.” After several film proposals dating from 1957, the book was finally made into a film, On the Road (2012), produced by Francis Ford Coppola and directed by Walter Salles. Kerouac, Jack. On the Road. New York: Penguin Books, 1976.

(come back to add more on Film and book— am in process of reading)

Other movies about Road Trips (In the process of watching) Thelma and Louise Bonnie and Clyde Easy Rider Into the Wild

Other Literary Works about Road Trips Wild by Cheryl Strayed Blue Highways by William Least Heat-Moon, 1982 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/great-road-trips-in-american-literature-42769879/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/07/24/mapped-five-of-the-best-road-trips-from-literature/?utm_term=.a2a50e93958d

Photographers centered around American Road Trip Robert Frank Ed Rusha Inge Morath Garry Winogrand William Eggleston Lee Friedlander Joel Meyerwitz Jacob Holdt Stephen Shore Bernard Plossu Victor Burgin Joel Sternfeld Shinya Fujiwara Alec Both Todd Hido Ryan McGinley Justine Kurland R

A Short History of the Long Road by David Campany

http://time.com/3998949/road-trip-history/ It’s about the early starts of the now iconic American Road Trip. Initially cars were expensive, gas stations were few and far between but by the time of the 20’s the land started to take shape to what we know today.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/taking-the-great-american-roadtrip-41615038/

https://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/great-american-road-trip-part-deux/

http://theweek.com/captured/442086/ode-great-american-road-trip

[naturecoaster]

Spring Lake's Historic Serenity

As you drive to Spring Lake, a small community in Eastern Hernando County here in the Nature Coast region of west-central Florida, what you may be struck most by is the sense that you are no longer in Florida at all. As if through some magical combination of temperature (such as when it’s 74 degrees and breezy on a Spring day), low humidity, high blue cloudless skies, and the beautiful rolling-hill topography here atop the Brooksville Ridge, it will be like you have left Florida behind. The congested, flat, strip mall infested Florida of the U.S. 19 corridor through Pasco and Hernando Counties suddenly becomes a thing of the past, and for all you know you could be driving through the foothills of South Carolina into North Carolina and in a few hours the Blue Ridge Mountains will appear on the horizon in front of you. Indeed, as you summit a hill just north of the Spring Lake town limits an entire vista opens up in front you and hundreds of rolling acres and the crest of a second ridge await on the horizon to the north.

View from Boyett's Grove Citrus Attraction looking north. At first, you think you are in the highest point in Florida and then another ridge is seen on the horizon. Image by Barrett Hardy. You may be moved to stop to take a picture. If you stop at that very spot on the crest of that very hill, you won’t even have to pull onto the shoulder of the road. You can pull into the parking lot of Boyett’s Grove. Boyett’s Grove Citrus Attraction is an old-school Florida roadside tourist stop in Spring Lake that dates back to the middle of the 20th Century. Here, despite the hills, you will know you’re in Florida.

Boyett's Grove Citrus Attraction is located on the top of the hill. It's a gift fruit shipper that has created an old-school Florida roadside tourist attraction. Image by Diane Bedard. Originally a functioning citrus grove, Boyett’s Citrus attraction was born in the early 1960s when a hard freeze damaged many of the citrus trees that provided the family that owned them with a living. They were forced to find an innovative way to preserve the remaining trees and keep the business afloat.

Boyett's Grove in the 1960s. Image courtesy of Kathy and Jim Oleson. What they created is a surreal mixture of Florida roadside kitsch, bonafide animal park, and functioning citrus farm. In the attraction’s gift shop, you can buy wildflower honey by the gallon, chocolate alligators, oranges and grapefruit, and even Grape Nehi Soda if you’re so inclined.

As Florida gift fruit shippers, Boyett's Grove has a great selection of Florida citrus that you can have shipped to friends and family, or pick some up for your table. Image by Diane Bedard.

Spring Lake, Florida Community

The community of Spring Lake was established in the middle of the 19th Century partly through Armed Occupation Act land grants. The Armed Occupation Act of 1842 was designed to encourage settlers to occupy Florida land seized during the Seminole Wars. Any man over the age of 18 could apply for up to 160 acres of land on the condition that he keep and bear arms and be prepared to man local militias in the event of any disturbances that may arise. Many such grants were made of fertile land here along the high country of Florida’s Brooksville Ridge. Some of Hernando County’s oldest and most prominent families called Spring Lake and the surrounding area home, including the Hope family, the Howell family, the Lykes family, the Lee family, and the Rogers family. Each of those family names ring out in discussions of Brooksville's history. Many landmarks and roads are named for them today.

The Spring Lake United Methodist Church was founded in 1884. Image by Barrett Hardy. Spring Lake United Methodist Church By the late 19th Century, the community of Spring Lake had established the Spring Lake Methodist Church, which is still active today. By the late 1880s, a public school was established that met in the church until 1889 when an early settler to the Spring Lake area donated land on which a school was built. This three-room school welcomed students for thirty years before being torn down to make room for a larger school better able to serve the community. Spring Lake Community Center National Historic Site The community of Spring Lake is also home to a National Historic Site. The Spring Lake Community Center was built in 1939 as a joint venture between the Spring Lake Women’s Club and the Hernando County Board of County Commissioners. It was as constructed using labor supplied by FDR’s New Deal program called the Works Progress Administration.

Sylvia Dukes dresses up for the Spring Lake Community Center Open House in 2019. Image courtesy of Spring Lake Community Center. The Spring Lake Community Center is considered to be one of the United States’ finest surviving examples of rubble stone architecture. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. When it was constructed, the Spring Lake Community Center not only provided a venue for events within the community itself, but also provided additional facilities to the school such as indoor plumbing, a lunchroom, and a library. The center continues to function to this day and is a center of community activity within Spring Lake. It is also available for event rentals.

The Spring Lake Community Center is on the U.S. Register of Historic Places. Image by Barrett Hardy. The Brooksville Ridge Florida is flat. There’s no other way to describe it. In fact, nearly 30% of peninsular Florida’s land barely rises above sea level. That’s what makes the Brooksville Ridge, which runs from the very southern edge of Citrus County just north of Brooksville down the eastern third of Hernando County into the northeast quadrant of Pasco County, so remarkable. It is formed by a layer of rich, fertile soil covering a layer of limerock underneath. This layer of soil prevented the dissolution and erosion of the limerock, preserving the elevation of the ridge, and making the area ideal for farming. The Brooksville Ridge boasts large hammocks of live oaks, incredible views, acres of farmland, limerock caves north of the city of Brooksville, and areas of lower elevation that over time have become lakes and ponds. One such lake is the namesake of the community of Spring Lake itself.

Spring Lake is surrounded by hills, making it easy to forget you are in Florida at all. There is a beautiful cemetery where you can explore the lives and deaths of early residents through reading their gravestones. Image by Barrett Hardy. Just east of Spring Lake Highway on Old Spring Lake road, the lake appears as you come down a gentle slope. The lake is flanked by native grasses and oak hammocks. Several houses with large rolling yards sit atop the surrounding hills. This is another example of the terrain in this region that’ll make you forget you’re in Florida at all. The eclectic, almost hallucinatory hodgepodge of Boyett’s Grove Citrus Attraction notwithstanding, Spring Lake offers little to nothing for the day tourist to do, which is why the place itself is so absolutely charming. It offers one-tank day-trippers an opportunity to free themselves of the relentless and typical get-up-and-go, endure-crowds, stand-in-line, and lay-like-sardines-on-a-crowded-beach offerings of most of Florida’s tourist attractions.

The gift shop at Boyett's Grove and Citrus Attraction is an eclectic hodgepodge of Old Florida gifts and souvenirs. Image by Diane Bedard When is the last time you just got in the car with a loved one for no other reason than to take a scenic drive to someplace offering nothing to do? When is the last time you hopped in the car, put on music you love, rolled down the windows and cranked back the sunroof just to drive and enjoy views that are available in very few places in Florida? When is the last time you stopped at a roadside grove stand and bought some fresh Florida citrus and a chocolate alligator? Places like the community of Spring Lake and Boyett’s Grove Citrus Attraction are quickly becoming a thing of the past in Florida. Floridians and the visitors that come here seem to value the hustle and bustle of our state’s big-time tourist attractions more than the quiet, sleepy throwbacks of old Florida. Some of us, though, still get chills when looking from the crest of one ridge across acres of rolling farmland towards the crest of a ridge in the distance. If you’re one of those people, fill the tank with gas, grab a paper straw for your bottle of Grape Nehi, and head to Spring Lake some morning when the sky is clear. It is a fulfilling and beautiful way to spend a day. Read the full article