#the culture has shifted a lot there in the past few years bc we went through like three bad directors all with the same shitty attitude and

[experiencingpenguinshockey]

:/

[skittles1229]

Old Expectations Die Hard (Dashie x Reader Fanfic)

Chapter One: Weird Circumstances

You know your life is complicated when the friend you always complain to says "you never have a dull moment do you?" I sigh as the weight of the world seems to make it impossible to breath. You see recently things have been rough. I lost my job and my fiance all in the same day, that itself was an unbelievable story. I was so upset and strung out on thoughts of what to do that once i got home early from work i didn't notice the extra car in the driveway. i stepped into my home and my own floors felt as if they'd given way when i saw the guy i thought i'd be spending my life with in bed, with my sister... my sister and i hadn't been on good terms for a while and for a good reason! The drugs she took either made her unreliable and selfish or crazy and murderous. He, of course, pulled the its not what you think, id never hurt you, it was a mistake, and honestly i could write a book out of the excuses i heard in the time of two minutes but maybe another time. Needless to say i left. I never thought about going back and to be honest my sister looked more hurt then i was. I took a job in California a few weeks ago and moved in with my friend (BFF Name). They always seemed to know what to say and honestly i truly believe They  knew me better then i know myself. 

California gave me the biggest culture shock I've ever had. I came from Mississippi, the bible belt and the most rural part of the world. California was sooooo different then what i was use to. The weather is awesome. There's lots of jobs for technical people, at least until you're 45 and then you're considered ancient and you can't possibly know anything when some 23-year old out of Stanford tells you that they know it all. (a little bit of sarcasm there) It's a great place to start a new company, money is available as is talent. The risk of starting a company is lower since you can always find a new job The politics are insane, if you aren't towing the progressive party line you should just STFU. If you even once say that Trump has done something positive, or that Obama did something negative prepare for the wrath. Read the stuff behind the recently filed lawsuit against google for a taste of what it's like. Seriously, don't say a word. The state if structurally bankrupt, although the finances look good because so much stuff is off of the balance sheet. The public pension liability dwarfs the "good" part of the budget, and some day it is coming home to roost. Watch out when it does. The cost of living is absurd, really absurd. I'm not talking just a place to live but gas, electricity, haircuts, milk, pizza, you name it. The traffic is absurd too. (can you tell i like the word absurd) The public transit, although usually on time, is a mess. People are pigs, they throw trash everywhere, the cars are overcrowded almost all the time. 

I've got to say, from how much it sounds like i hate California, i actually don't.  Mainly because its so far away from my original family, leaving really helped me start to grow up and feel like maybe i was getting a hold of my life again. Only problem has been getting to my new job on time. I work as a barista and a waitress at a brunch place a good minute away from the apartment. The money is good, otherwise i wouldn't waste my time with the commute everyday. i keep being late to work because i still haven't adjusted to how terrible traffic is and so my boss was "nice" enough to switch me to the later shifts. The hours are long and boring because my shift starts in the middle of rush hour to the slowest hours at the end of the day meaning you have to find things to keep yourself busy with. the only good thing is, we can wear pretty much anything we want as long as its black. all i wear is dark colors so i didn't have to spend any extra money on a uniform and i didn't have to wear the same thing everyday. Today i decided i wear a v-neck shirt that with an emperor waist (body forming) with black skinny jeans and my regular converse. i decided against driving to work and decided it would be far smarter to catch a bus to the nearest destination. My (hair color) hair was done is a fishtail messy braid, i always liked this style because it made me look like i had a head full of hair when in reality i thought i was going bald. 

My personality was a little odd, you see some days i felt like the beautiful nerd who has no confidence and wants to hide away in a hole. other days i feel like a model from Victoria secrets, of course those are the days i get the most tips. today was honestly a mutual day, where id rather be at home in my bed asleep, or listening to music. The bus finally stopped a block away from my job and i sighed obviously not wanting to go into work. surprisingly there wasn't nearly  as many cars as there usually is around this time but i wasn't complaining. i walk in to see that most of the downstairs was empty but whoever was upstairs definitely had a loud mouth. i walk to the back in order to clock in and i bump into melany ( the girl im shifting with). "wow you actually got here on time! Maybe the boss's mood will cheer up." i huffed a little. "yea, i dont know why i thought id need a car in California, say whats with the low level of customers? its NEVER this slow." she looked at me in disdain, "some guys reserved the entire upstairs and we had to make this huge table out of all our tables up there, glad im not gonna be the one fixing it later." i rolled my eyes, i hated when a huge family came in and they just had to move everything around because little johnny wants the sit next to suzzie and suzzie HAS to sit by her parents bc she likes to throw her food on the floor, all fake names but a real situation ive been in before. "well have they at least been fed so that i only have to clean up after them?" she shook her head while hanging up her apron. "nope, they've only ordered their drinks and they are getting those onto trays now." so today was gonna be like every other day. "guess i better go help them take those upstairs then, have a good rest of your day." i walk away and slip on my apron, grabbed one of the trays of drinks while another waiter grabbed the rest of the drinks. Once i got upstairs, that's when i met him...

Chapter Two: Last Will and Testament

          He was sitting on the far end of the long table of people laughing and joking. everyone seemed to be loud and all had their own inside jokes. This guy, he stuck out. i changed my attention to the task at hand, finishing this shift. i hated when people moved all the tables and seating around. all the waiters and waitresses have to go back behind them and look at the layout of the floor to put them all back exactly as they were before. it was a struggle and because of this nobody actually wanted that job so usually the manager gives it to her least favorite workers and i happened to be one. "who all had coke?" nobody answered me so one of the men bellowed out the same line and somehow was able to get a show of hands. i walked around handing  out drinks, catching the lingering smell of strong liquor. i could tell by the end of tonight they would all be wasted and loud. please, just don't make more of a mess then you have to, i thought to myself. i had one drink left on my tray, "sweet tea?" the guy i saw before at the end of the table waved his hand and i dreaded going over there, i always seem to make a fool of myself when it matters. 

     i make my way slowly down the table with the tray under my arm and the tea in my hand. i lean over to sit his drink on the table.."here's your t-" *CRASH* while joking with one of his friends his elbow crashes into my hand sending the tea flying all over me and the cup crashing to the floor, thank god i wore black. he turned around and looked more horrified then i did. "i'm sorry! i'm so sorry!" his voice was deeper then i imagined it'd be. "no, it my fault i'm sorry ill get you a new one." i turned away to hide my embarrassment and walked away really just trying to get away from the situation. i could tell from the silence behind me that all eyes were on me. i ran to the back where the lockers were for the service. i went to the bathroom and stripped the sticky clothes off throwing them aside. i sat on the toilet  trying to catch my breath, my social anxiety had struck me  hard. a feeling of worthlessness and dread fell over me like a blanket. after the past few months i've had just one day without something terrible happening would mean the world to me. i heard a knock on the door, it was melany, she walked in with a towel from the kitchen. "hey, i heard what happen upstairs are you ok?" i covered my breast trying keep myself as unexposed as possible. "oh yea im fine, im just cold, and sticky, and... covered in tea." melany and i made eye contact and both laughed just to lift the dread in the air. "let me guess, all the guys are getting a kick out of watching me fumble again huh?" i said a little less concerned and more annoyed. she rolled her eyes "they are boys, they get a kick out of picking their own nose. we both slid to the floor beside each other, she hands me the damp towel. i get most of the sticky off as possible, throwing my hair up to make it look less clumped together by the sugar. "i have an extra black t shirt in my locker but i don't know how it will fit you. your breast are at least a size larger then mine." i shrugged my shoulders, "who cares ill make do. thanks for your help melany." she smiled her weird anime girl smile and ran to get the shirt from her locker.

     ill have to admit, she was right about the size thing. it was far to small around the chest area but the rest fit fine. after the incident my boss stuck me down stairs wiping tables and sweeping the floor, i dont mind though because i get to experience the day coming to an end with a beautiful sunset over California. i secretly kept the the window to watch as the sun fell from the sky. the sky seemed to burn and darken while the clouds began to glow with the last bit of sunlight left. the sky filled up with burning Burgundy and faded orange and yellows, the tallest buildings seemed to reach for the skyline as if it were a sunflower moving to the last drip of sunlight. moving here had been hard, and this had become one of the things i looked forwards to. living in the apartment with my friend was nice, buts its not the same as coming home to someone you use to lay with every night. sleeping alone seemed so much colder and emptier then i remembered from childhood. my mother would be so disappointed in the way i turned out, in the places id gone and the decision to spend my life with someone who was most obviously the wrong one. she would have told me to slow down and to take my time, that growing up wasn't everything. she would have said love isn't something you just wake up and have, its something you make. i wasn't anywhere close to where i thought id be by now, and i could see that. it tears at my heart everyday, not being able to see her or any of my family. sometimes it felt as if they'd all died in the fire that night. 

     i suddenly heard a boom of voices making their way down the stairs, i hadn't realized how close to closing time it had become. all of them walk out stumbling and laughing at their own jokes, seems they all got a good bit of drinking in, all except one. The guy i ran into on accident seemed as sober as ever, designated driver i think, he was much taller now. he seemed muscular but in such a fitting way for his body. his teeth sparkle because their so white, his smile complimented him best. his high cheekbones made his chocolate brown eyes his best feature. His skin was glowing with a sweet honey hue and before i could notice that i was staring he turned his head. his eyes met mind before i could think twice and that's when i felt the heat rise to my cheeks. weather it be from embarrassment or silly school girl shyness i didn't know . i turned my face away but it was too late, i turned my face a little just to catch a glimpse of him before he made his way out of the door and that's when i noticed his cheeks had gone from a burnt caramel to a rosy color. i felt my body shiver at the thought that maybe, just maybe he found me as attractive as i found him. i shook the thought from head realizing they had began locking the place down. as i helped close up shop and wash dishes i couldn't help but to let my mine wander to all different kinds of thoughts, funny thing was they always fell back to him and his rosy  cheeks. i couldn't help but smile as i felt my heart race at the thought of him, even though id made a fool of myself today i was glad i hadn't ruined my chances. Even if he'd never get with me or i wouldn't ever see him again, i'd still take it as a compliment that he even looked my way. 

     before long we were all outside laughing and talking about today. The manager locked the doors and said his goodbyes. i turn to walk towards the bus station when i see a man standing aside awkwardly between the restaurant and the parking lot. suddenly my eyes adjusted and once they did, the joyousness butterflies came back and the blush suddenly reappeared on my cheeks..

There are lots more chapter after this if you are interested you can find them here

https://my.w.tt/sosFRmianbb

[neoangelic]

Don’t Need Your Love

➳ an nct dream series

After a horrible first love experience, Yang Ahn joins the Don’t Need Your Love club via invitation. Things don’t turn out the way they were supposed to. 

➳ a story of not-so-romance featuring: the coolest club on campus, the meaning of unrequited, teenagers, best friends, heartbreak, healing, first loves, and new ones. 

➳ masterlist 

➳ note: female oc, multiple pairings, ot7 dream, not saying anything more bc spoilers!

➳ word count: 2235

DNYL. A four-letter word—if you would even call it a word. DNYL: four letters that defined the rest of my youth. Four letters that changed my perspective of quite a few other four-letter words. These four consonants brought together a broken band of romance misfits, the love-lost and the lovelorn, and I was the unfortunate latter.

A scoff dared to spill from my lips when I heard Harvey’s voice crackle over the loudspeaker. It wasn’t abnormal for clubs to advertise themselves via intercom, but those were your usual clubs: basketball, taekwondo, art, math, and such. It started off one of those usual announcements at first, but his next words turned everything around.

“The coolest club on campus: DNYL—”

Such a declarative statement. It stopped me in my tracks on the way to homeroom.

“—Don’t Need Your Love.”

And like the rest of the student body, his audacious proposal of a club nearly made me laugh. Harvey was a sweet exchange student from the United Kingdom. A gregarious boy with a knack for gathering people’s interest. This stunt was no exception. Like the rest of Neo Culture Tech’s teenager-filled population, he droned on about relationships, though he spoke of the broken kind. 

Since I had no relation to such types of relationship, I let his voice fade into the background of chattering students and teachers ushering them off to class. At this point, all I paid attention to was the scuff on my Mary Janes as I walked and the way the spine of my notebooks sat uncomfortably against my bicep. My grip on them grew tighter as bits and pieces of Harvey’s speech were growing harder to suppress. Intrusive thoughts crawled its way into my mind. A whisper of an unforgotten forgotten name. Ghosts of conversations in a foreign language. A face began to form in my memory. One with cat-like, sharp eyes. Before my fingertips could come into contact with the cool metal of the doorknob in front of me and snap me out of my thoughts—something else did.  

“Do you feel down from all this unrequited love?” 

Do you feel down from all this unrequited love? Was that even a question?

I finally let a chuckle past my lips, once again turning my attention towards the scuff mark on my shoe, once again letting the name of first love to be forgotten and remembering that I had a class to attend.

“What’s so funny?”

“Lee Jeno, Jesus Christ,” my shoulders jumped to my ears. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“You looked dumb standing like that,” he gestured to my hand that floated above the doorknob.

“Are you trying to act like Hyuck-oppa by insulting me?”

“Well as your new best friend, I need to fill the void that Haechan left in our Ahn-ah’s heart.”

“You say that like he’s dead.”

“Yeah, dead to you.”

“Only sometimes,” I roll my eyes. “He’ll be back in one more month and I never said anything about you being my new best friend.”

He pouts, like a puppy. “Well haven’t I done a good job of taking care of you while he’s gone? You did post on your insta story about best friend applications being open and I remember sending you a resume that I don’t think you ever read. He’s been gone since like the beginning of last school year—”

Jeno continued to ramble on with loud hand gestures. It was odd to know that this was the boy I was introduced to during freshman year of high school. His features have grown to become more chiseled and—due to his resolution of ‘becoming fit’ over the summer—I couldn’t help but notice the outlines of muscle through his school uniform. Still retaining his puppy-like features, puberty didn’t steal away his cuteness just yet. The Lee Donghyuck he currently was ranting about was my best friend of now four years. I concluded that his one-sided competition for Donghyuck’s role as my best friend was his little way of reminiscing the devilish boy. Although, he’d never admit that he missed him. Neither would I.

Donghyuck was the funniest boy I ever met. He was like the sun at its brightest as it shone through a stormy day. His reactions were exaggerated and animated and he never failed at catching every opportunity for a quick-witted remark against me. But my favorite part about him was when he made jokes with a straight face. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. He breathed life into my gloomy 7th-grade self. But I don’t think I could forgive him for not metaphorically holding my hand throughout first year. He had to leave Korea a quarter through the first semester because his parents won a trip to Canada. And I get it. Canada was a great place to be, but he failed to inform me that his trip would last about a year. Before he left, he introduced me to Jeno and told me that we would get along splendidly. 

In the words of my best friend; ‘you’d be too much of a loner while I’m gone, so I bestow this pity gift on you.’ 

Not to mention, our first meeting was hilarious. 

He was right. I missed him like the moon missed the sun in the cold night sky.

Luckily, Jeno and I had more in common than I thought and maybe Donghyuck knew that. Maybe that was why he introduced us. He always had an eye for such things. 

The first thing I said made him choke on his milk and flush cherry. Let’s just say I recognized him from an old advert he did as a child actor, featuring the said drink he choked on. The Lee Jeno I first got to know was awkward and shy, never without his crescent-crinkled eyes, a bashful smile, and fingers pulling on a hoodie string. The Lee Jeno that stood in front of me was wide-eyed, broad-shouldered, and confident as ever. 

He grew up a lot.

Don’t ever tell him this (lest you want his ego to inflate) but I really admired him for that. 

“—in conclusion, who was there for that whole fiasco? Not Haechan. What did he ever do? Facetime you every day? Pff I bought you ice cream. Now that’s a real friendship. You didn’t see him flying over from Canada to comfort you, did you? Maybe he was whisked away by a Canadian babe or hunk—”

“You got me my least favorite flavor,” I remarked.

“Ahn-ah,” he whined. “Give me some credit.”

“Tough love. If you wanna be Donghyuck try to be more annoying. He’d never greet me like that.”

“Oh yeah? And how would he have greeted you?” Jeno leaned forward to meet me eye level as if challenging me. Regret flashed in his eyes as I promptly jumped up to put him in a headlock, messing up his perfectly combed hair with my free hand.

“Aw isn’t our Jeno-oppa so grown up?” I pout, pulling and pinching at his cheeks. “Every morning that I see you, you seem to get taller. What am I going to do with you?”

He scrunched his nose in disgust, furrowing his brows. “I think I have cooties now.”

“That’s the spirit. Now keep that up and you’re on your way—maybe—to be just like Hyuckie.”

“The absolute disrespect you’re giving him while he’s gone, calling someone older than you so casually” he scoffs, wrestling his head out of my grasp. “How has he had this much influence on you while he’s gone?”

“Well—”

“Lee. Yang. I don’t suppose you’d want to be late for my class while having a lovers quarrel, don’t you?”

I push Jeno away from me and bowed, flustered. “Sorry, saem.”

“Saem-nim,” Jeno clicked his tongue at my rough gesture, running his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think I could think of her romantically even if I was paid five million won.”

Mr. Song tapped his knuckles against the boy’s head. “Be nice to girls, Jeno. I was joking. I guess you finally found another boy to bully, Ahn?”

“In my defense, sir, the last boy was the one who bullied me.”

“Pfft—”

“I liked you better with the other boy you were friends with, yes. Why don’t I see him with you anymore? You seemed to cause a lot less trouble with—”

Jeno swung the door open. “I think we should get to our seats, Ahn-ah. I’m sorry about the trouble Mr. Song.” His hands clasped around my shoulders and ushered me into the classroom, another scuff to probably form as I tried to not trip over my own feet or drop my books. He shoved me toward my seat.

“Hey—”

“Shh,” he shot an annoying smile at my irritation. “Class is starting.”

“Rude. I think Donghyuck got to you too,” I grumble, sinking my face into the palm of my hand as my notebooks lay in disarray on my desk. It was unfortunate that our homeroom teacher was nice. He let Jeno sit next to me.

“I’ll call attendance now.” 

My unfortunate seatmate leaned closer toward me. I inched away, rolling my eyes as he whispered.

“So… does that make me better BFF material?” His eyes disappeared into crescents as he prodded me with is a pencil, chuckling deviously. I slapped his hand away.

“You’re still not as funny as him.”

“What the hell—”

“H-here.”

“Lee, Jeno?” Mr. Song stared at the black-haired boy with a raised eyebrow.

To which he coughed loudly to cover up his expletive.

And aside from Harvey’s little announcement that morning, the rest of the day went on without a hitch. Soon enough, Monday turned into Tuesday, which morphed into Wednesday and bumped into Thursday. All the “day”s seemed the same. Monotonous. The only thing that was different was the slowly shifting breeze and the changing colors of the leaves of plants and trees. The autumn scenery was finally settling in.

And you know what they say about autumn.

It was a fitting season for the boy in front of me. A season of endings and changes—amongst all the other autumn things. 

“Why are you tearing them down?” I caught a piece of paper that fluttered down the stairway. It had been a while since I spoke English, the language strange on my tongue. “They’re cute.”

Harvey turned around and flashed a tight-lipped smile. He shook his head with a disappointed exhale. “Quite frankly, the whole thing was a bust.” His hand reached for another DNYL poster, one of many that scattered the walls of this place.

I picked up some rogue posters that fell onto the steps, approaching the foreign boy. I wasn’t lying about the posters being cute. They were handmade and created with color and illustration, the words written in an aesthetic way. Though, I didn’t mind to read them. 

“Why’d you make the club in the first place?”

“I guess I’ve just seen those people around campus who’ve just been so unhappy,” he said. “It felt horrible knowing that there was nothing I could do to help but I thought to myself that maybe, just maybe, if I created a safe haven away from that heartbreak, then nobody would feel lonely enough to cry their heart out. Have you ever had the feeling of wanting to start something beautiful?” Harvey’s eyes were green and genuine. The golden light from the window was filtered through leaves, creating a taste of a nostalgic, bittersweet what-if. 

“Once,” I answered, a feeling pulling at my chest. An urge. A remembrance of what was and what could have been. There was a wish for warmth, even soaked in the honey glow of the sun. Longing. For new beginnings. 

Who hasn’t felt the wish for something to ignite?

For something to explode.

For undreamt dreams to just come true.

“I guess I also wanted to leave a small legacy before I leave. I need to go back home pretty soon.” A solemn sigh left Harvey once again as he stared down at one of his white posters. A pitiful silence hung in the air, dust fairies dancing and floating around us, falling and disappearing away from the light.

“Maybe you just need to find your targeted audience,” the words didn’t mean to come out of my lips, but they did anyway. “NCT is a highschool where teenage romance never sleeps. You’d be best off finding some outliers—y’know like the people you mentioned.”

“The ones I’ve seen around campus?”

“Yeah. Those who have been dumped, had a bad breakup, dealing with a broken heart… isn’t that what you said this club was for?”

“I wouldn’t suppose you’re one of those outliers?” He called out.

I looked behind at Harvey and the colorful papers that stuck out from his arms and his backpack. I looked at the empty walls and the tape that he wasn’t able to scrape off and half torn stickers that spelled ‘DN’. I look at him and smile without meaning to.

“If this is truly the coolest club on campus, then send a message my way.

“I don't have your number.”

“Who said you needed to text me to communicate? Send me something interesting—something special. I wanna feel like I’m being invited to the Phantom’s masquerade,” I turned away, biting at the inside of my cheek. My next words came at a frightening decrescendo as I realized what I was getting myself into. “If you find that I’m suited for your club…surprise me.

<< recruiting now | masterlist | boys are never worth it >>

footnotes -

saem: a shortened word for ‘seongsaeng-nim’ or teacher.

oppa: well, I think we all know this one but I mostly use it to signify respect or difference of age

[allbeendonebefore]

Hey hapo what's with the sea of blue in sask and Alberta during the election like did Sheer make that good of an impression on Sask voters??? NDP is option??

sea of blue you say? obviously we created our own blue sea since we’re not allowed access to tidewater JKJKJKJK

this is a really complicated question and I’m trying to think about how best to explain it. my feelings on the issue are very mixed because i feel like i have a foot or a hand in several camps like some convoluted twister game. it’s something that a lot of identity and emotion is tied up in for a lot of people and it’s rooted very firmly in inequalities that have existed for over a century and get expressed differently in different regions. It’s something that I grew up saturated in and I’ve done a lot of reading about (and of course there’s always more on my reading list) but I’ll try and highlight a few reasons that I’ve been musing about so as not to be too overwhelming. 

it’s something that is really hard to explain to people from outside the province because we’re quick to be written off (sometimes rightfully so, others not) but it’s something that’s equally hard to explain to people inside the province. As I said it’s something we’re all saturated in, we are born into it or we grow up in it and it’s really hard to confront a lot of things surrounding it. And I definitely have my own biases and background and relation to this issue and I must stress that as furious as I am with people in large groups making dumb ass decisions, I can’t be angry at individuals because I get a lot of why this happens even though I find it personally misguided or ignorant at best and actively harmful, selfish, and self-sabotaging at worst. But when I explain this I hope it makes sense why for a lot of people it feels like the only option.

And my last preface is that I am speaking from an Alberta perspective, if my followers in Saskatchewan want to add on to this please feel free. I’m glossing over a lot here because I’m trying to keep this short and understandable… but when have I ever done that lol.

Yeah, it got long.

so why does the west go conservative. it’s not scheer, and if you remember harper you’ll remember personality is never high on our list of priorities. [insert gif of harper explaining how he too is a human who watches netflix here] 

1. History 

To sum up two hundred years: Alberta and Saskatchewan were never equal partners in confederation with other provinces. They were purchased and carved up by the Canadian government which then imposed the two party system on the provinces, which prior had consensus government which (i believe) was similar to how NWT and Nunavut continue to operate. They were not given the rights to their own resources until decades after joining confederation. They were given Liberal governments because the Liberals were and are considered the “natural” governing party of Canada, and while Saskatchewan has flopped between Liberal and Conservative governments like many eastern provinces, Alberta has always had a radical streak and has NEVER re-elected an unseated party in its history. And no, I don’t consider the UCP a continuation of the previous 4 decades of conservative rule, even though they imagine themselves to be the inheritors of that legacy. 

Fast forward to the direct impacts: in the 70s, world events that severely impacted oil production caused Eastern Canada to absolutely panic and force Alberta and Saskatchewan (yet again) into providing discounts on their production to soften the blow in Ontario and Quebec of rising prices, forbidding them to sell for a profit to the United States. This included both oil products and potash, hugely lucrative products in AB and SK. It was a continuation of Eastern Canada imagining and treating the prairies as property, as chattel, where provinces like Quebec and BC would never be asked to undersell to benefit the rest of the country. 

The current federal conservative party is an amalgamation of reactions to this situation and related ones: the Progressive party (which was a complete misnomer) originated in Manitoba, the Reform party emerged from what I understand as the “first wave” of western separatism, and even though Reform was defeated federally it is still a direct ancestor to Stephen Harper and by extension Andrew Scheer. Harper’s policies are the natural product of decades of conservative governments dating back to Preston and Earnest Manning’s Social Credit party in Alberta.

That said, people from both inside and outside the provinces completely misunderstand Harper’s (and Kenney’s) “Western-ness” or “Albertan-ness”. Both of them ran on western issues and appear to speak up for western interests, but those issues and interests only go as far as the CEOs of the oil companies are concerned, not the working class in the industry. Harper and Kenney actively undermined the equalization formula for the west and had the gall to campaign on striking a good deal for the west. Federal politicians do not have to ever strike a good deal for the west, they will ALWAYS prioritize voters in Ontario and Quebec so long as our voting system remains this way. 

2. Identity

My next point in the long agonizing question of Why This is a sensitive one. In Alberta we have my parent’s generation who were voting age at the toppling of Social Credit by Lougheed’s Conservatives. For Alberta this was a monumental shift in taking no shit from Ottawa that people still look back on. Lougheed was a hero for demanding a fair price from Canada for Alberta, and he was incredibly concerned with managing the resource and the profits wisely. While conservative governments were natural and long standing in eastern Canada, this was the first time they had taken power in Alberta and they made a dramatic and revolutionary impression, which is not a thing that conservative governments are usually known to do. 

My parent’s generation remembers this time of intense prosperity. My parent’s generation raised their children in this boom-bust cycle and my parent’s generation watched as Lougheed’s heritage fund was spent out from under us. I grew up under Ralph Klein’s government- intensely popular for a premier and who’s legacy was as powerful as Lougheed’s, but incredibly polarizing. He gave $300 to every man, woman and child in the province (except my fam because we had just moved back and didn’t have residency, lol) which was memorable if irresponsible. But it was men like Klein who had the charisma and the presence to make people really take pride in the industry, to worship the boom-bust, and to consider all problems solved. Klein did not give a shit about the part of Alberta I grew up in, and friends who lived in the far north of the province fared even worse. It’s absolutely no wonder that the Edmonton area consistently votes “against” the rest of the province when we were left isolated and broken during the bust of the 90s and ignored repeatedly in the mid to late 2000s. 

I have a deep seated and extreme resentment for Ralph Klein’s government and it’s not because I missed out on my 300 Ralph Bucks or because I don’t have connections to the industry, it’s because I grew up with a deep seated fear that I wouldn’t be able to complete my education or that if I got sick something horrible would happen. I was legitimately terrified I would not be able to make it to secondary school because of the cuts his government made on rural schools, and for friends of mine who were not as lucky and well supported as I was, it was even worse. I won’t drag their personal stories onto the internet to make my point, but know 

But the point of this all is that the people alive today who vote are people who remember this time of prosperity, of fighting Ottawa, and of relative ‘freedom’ from taxation and so on and so forth are constantly trying to hold onto that time. The kids in my generation who I went to school with did not have to graduate high school - my school had a 70% drop out rate because people would go straight to the patch or into a related industry. In Alberta, every industry is a related industry. There is not an aspect of living in Alberta that the patch doesn’t touch. This is hard to understand for people outside the province. It was actual culture shock to me to come to Ontario where funders of schools and businesses are families that date back to confederation rather than Enbridge or Suncor. 

Moreover, the people who work in the patch do an incredibly difficult and dangerous job for incredible amounts of money and it’s no wonder they are so valourized. The people who work in the patch are more dependent on the companies than they are on the government. During the fire of 2016, it may have been the government providing evacuation stations, but it was the companies who got people out. Working class people feel seriously undervalued and are obviously seriously defensive about the industry for real, concrete reasons. 

The past four decades have shaped generations of people in this way. This is not something easily reversed. Voting conservative is almost inextricable from Albertan identity and it’s impossible to explain concisely. We all grow up with the same arguments and talking points, we are all imbued with anger and defensive remarks from birth, and to people outside the province our arguments can sound rehearsed to the point of sounding cult-like. Stop Using Plastic If You Don’t Like It. Stop Driving and Flying. Stop Importing from Dictatorships. Stop Being a Hypocrite. They are easy, simple mantras to absolve anyone related to the industry (which is everyone) of any guilt because they don’t have to be a hypocrite if they just embrace the reality. There is no room for any critical thought in this identity, there is no room for discussion, there is nothing beyond Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and Don’t Ever Criticize What Keeps Everything Running. It’s normal and natural to feel upset when people who don’t grow up with this line of thinking find it strange.

3. Alienation

So why doesn’t our valourization of the working class translate directly into NDP votes? Why does Rachel Notley become vilified for speaking and acting as Peter Lougheed did in the 1970s? Why do we continue voting conservative and say thank you when they betray us and kick us in the balls every single time? Why do we cover up our oh-so-shameful history of birthing the CCF/NDP out of the desperation and destitution of the Great Depression? 

As I’ve been saying it’s complicated, but it’s also really simple. No federal party ever speaks to us. Not a single one. The conservatives barely have to because they know our identity as conservative dates back to before a time when we even had a provincial upper-case Conservative government ourselves. Scheer can parade up and down parliament hill with his appeals to free speech and his pro life base and his white supremacist dogwhistles all he likes because he knows keeping Alberta and Saskatchewan “happy” (read: angry) is easy. This is a man who said himself that he doesn’t need ‘indian votes’ to win and he certainly was far more worried about keeping Doug Ford out of the spotlight during his campaign and pissing off Ontario than he was about us, and premier kenney spent all his time in office campaigning for scheer instead of running the goddamn province, including preparing us for an emergency. And we lap it up while screaming bloody murder if rachel notley is not personally handing out waterbottles on the side of the highway of death. 

No party, not even the conservatives, truly speaks to Albertans. We get hated on constantly by the rest of the country because we appear to be full of climate change deniers, but even the CEO of SUNCOR condemns deniers and politicians who cater to them. A lot of Albertans do acknowledge climate change is a reality despite how we’re painted, but because of the misunderstanding we feel directed at us constantly we tend to react badly and would rather hole up in our bunkers and let the rest of the country freeze in the dark - or melt in the sun as it were. No party speaks to working class rural people. No party makes the attempt to speak to people who are still only grappling with already outdated terminology like “global warming” while they are shoveling snow in August or September. No party is talking about actual grievances that working class people in Alberta face, such as long hours away from home and family or intense isolation that leads to addiction and death, that matter more to people than seemingly hypothetical change in climate that happens Elsewhere, not Here. Parties need to start coming up with concrete solutions that will make the inevitable transition more than just necessary but inclusive and beneficial. No one wants to feel like they have to start from scratch, no one wants to worry about what to do or how it will help. We aren’t used to thinking about solving problems, and we keep putting it on the next generation while we make it even harder for them.  

The more we are criticized the more militaristic the vocabulary becomes, and that’s why we provincially voted for a war room and tax cuts while taking the money from school lunch programs. We rest on our laurels of having the lowest child poverty rate in the country while stealing money from children and blaming their parents for them going hungry. It’s abominable. And a lot of us realize it. And a lot of us still feel as if we have no choice. A lot of progressive voices get drowned out in stifling silence and any change feels like an existential threat. We got ourselves into this mess, but we all need to work together to get out of it. And that means listening to the strongest opposition we’ve had in nearly a half century. That means being grown ups and sitting at the table with the rest of the country. That means fighting the gut reaction to sputter out talking points you were taught to say because it meant protecting your family. That also means that we need to be listened to in return without smugness or patronizing attitudes from politicians or the rest of the country. 

If you want us to switch to alternative energy, you all need to step up and start helping us do that. As long as we feel as if it’s being imposed on us we will struggle and we will fight, but it’s exactly why it’s so important to change the tone of the conversation. Listen to us. Help us. Make us feel like we’re part of the country. Give us the tools we need to be better. Encourage us to be leaders in the energy industry because we love being the best and thrive off healthy competition. Appeal to real, concrete issues for working class people with real concrete solutions. 

yeah. uh. [places mic shakily back on the stand] peace im going to bed, fight me or whatever. 

[daddy5atan]

Angst Drabble where Gigi & his younger boyfriend have been dating for a while & now Gigi is going to PSG &wants his bf to move with him & Gigi wants to propose in France but they get into a fight bc his bf has a good job in Italy & he’s gonna miss his family. Gigi ends up saying something he doesn’t mean his his bf storms out.Gigi goes to Paris w/o him & he’s been off & not himself.Gigi is in his house looking at pics of them crying and his bf comes to Paris w/ Gigi’s PSG Jersey & at Gigi’s door

“If you can’t support me and the choices I make in my career, then you must not really give a damn. Don’t fucking go to Paris with me for all I care! Whatever we had between us is over, as far as I’m concerned. Get the fuck out of my house.”

…

Gigi was the furthest thing from irrational. Every decision he made was with careful planning and consideration of all the outcomes and their repercussions. But, that night, all those weeks ago… He was ashamed to say he lost it. He acted irrationally, and it cost him his relationship with the only man he ever really loved wholeheartedly. And since the moment the words left his lips, he’d regret uttering them. There was nothing he could do, however, but suffer the consequences once they were spoken.

The words still rang fresh in his mind even now. Not a day went by where he didn’t think of what he’d said to his lover, nor the sound of the younger man’s voice breaking as he fought off tears, and proceeded to storm off and slam the door behind him. It was an awful feeling, knowing he was the cause of someone else’s pain. But his lover? It left him with this gut-wrenching pain day in and day out, a pain absolutely nothing could fix. They were meant to be lovers, not exes, and this never once felt right.

He felt alone, perhaps more than ever. And to make matters worse, he was in a new country, surrounded by a new culture, new people, and a new routine. Some days it felt as though he was moving in slow motion while everyone else was rushing around him, leaving him to wallow in his own self hatred over that one night. It was torture. But no one knew of the hell he was living. Veratti, the only person in the squad who Gigi had really ever interacted with outside of football, and one of the few Italians on the squad as well, often times had his suspicions, and he’d ask questions in hopes of getting some information out of Gigi, however to no avail.

The elder Italian could feel himself slip back into depression from all those years ago as the days went on. A battle he once thought he’d conquered was coming back to haunt him, clouding his vision and leaving his world a dreary black and white. His lover was gone, and with him, went all color. There was no longer a sense of hope nor optimism in him, something incredibly foreign and dangerous. Perhaps worst of all was the fact that he knew full well that he was responsible for all of this. He was already the kind of person to blame himself for the things that went wrong in his life, but this? This was actually his fault. It wasn’t some irrational, twisted mentality that pained him day in and day out, but something perhaps even more twisted, and worse yet — reality. It was a reality he couldn’t escape, and he was to live with the weight of the responsibility on his shoulders, as well as the knowledge that he could have had it all if he had just stopped to calm down, stopped to have a proper discussion like adults.

But, sometimes it wasn’t so easy — sometimes emotions got in the way and ruined everything just like they had that night. He felt hurt and betrayed in the moment, but looking back now, he knew his lover was in the right. He had a great job in Italy, as well as a large family whom he was incredibly close to, and as a true Italian through and through, he couldn’t just leave the culture and the lifestyle he had here in Italy for something new, something that wasn’t guaranteed just yet. Not even for love. Asking him to drop everything and move to a different country was asking a lot, and Gigi knew now that he had had no right to ask so much of him, then get so angry when he refused. But, there was no going back…

Day after day, he’d stare at the younger man’s contact photo in his phone, debating on whether or not to give him a call. To apologize, to beg and plead for forgiveness, to pour his heart and soul out to him and confess his love. But something stopped him. Why would he want to hear from Gigi of all people anyhow? After all that? Gigi wouldn’t even blame him if he’d blocked his number and completely erased him from his life. For all he knew, he already had, but there was no way of knowing for sure until he took the step he was too afraid to take. He was afraid of trying and failing, realizing there really was no hope of correcting his mistake. He thought that would just send him spiraling all over again, and so he avoided it. And in Paris, he could do that. Back in Turin, someone like Giorgio or Claudio would encourage him, or even take matters into their own hands — Gigi used to curse and swear at them up and down every damned time, but being away from them now, he realized how lucky he was to have such nosy, overbearing friends, sometimes. In Paris, he had no one to push him, or take matters into their own hands. He was left to wallow, left in a rut, stuck and alone.

He went about training normally, and tried his very best, but he was nothing like his former self. There was something off, something different about him, but none of his new teammates knew him well enough to realize that. His evenings were spent alone, oftentimes in silence or with the TV on as background noise. His dinners were bland and half assed because he just didn’t feel like cooking, but he knew better than to not eat at all. He often attempted to head up to bed early to pass the time alone. Many nights were spent tossing and turning restlessly, wishing he had his lover by his side. When he did manage to fall asleep, he never felt well rested come the next morning.

It all became routine rather quickly, however sad and pathetic it was, and he made no attempt to do anything about it. Sometimes the routine differed slightly to allow himself a few hours to cry and reminisce in the evenings, which of course, only made him feel worse. But, it seemed making the effort to make himself feel better was far too difficult to even bother. And so he went about his routine day in and day out. Misery was his company, and it seemed it would be until the end of his days, as the darkness creeped in and clouded his thoughts and vision.

It was late one Thursday evening, however, when he received a knock on the door. The day wasn’t particularly memorable, like many others nowadays, and the evening was no better. He had parked himself on the sofa, scrolling through old photos and struggling to hold back tears. When he heard the knock on the door, frankly he was tempted to just ignore it. But, he thought better of it when he considered it may be one of his teammates stopping by to check in on him for whatever reason. He needed to keep up his facade of sorts, however paper thin it was. And so he dragged himself over to the front door of his new place, head low, dark circles under his eyes, and a rather thick beard beginning to grow as he just didn’t care to shave it. It was clear that these past few weeks alone had been hell on him.

When he opened the door, however, he was left frozen in absolute shock as he was met face to face with his lover— er, former lover, he supposed. The young Italian stood on his doorstep in ripped jeans, a white button up shirt, a leather jacket and dress shoes, truthfully looking just as good as ever, though his eyes seemed to hold a certain sadness and tiredness. He had a dark, balled up fabric clutched in his hands and a sort of meek expression, as though slightly afraid of the man before him, perhaps even intimidated.

“Gigi…” He went to speak, however came up with nothing more. He inhaled, swallowed the lump in his throat, and then exhaled slowly as though trying to calm himself, organize his thoughts. “I’m sorry…” Was ultimately all he managed, in a soft voice that just about broke Gigi’s heart. He sounded like a sad little boy, and Gigi wanted nothing more than to bring him into his arms and comfort him.

The elder Italian shook his head slowly, stepping through the threshold in order to stand before the younger man. “No… I’m sorry… I asked so much of you, and just expected you to agree and follow so willingly… It was selfish, and I’m sorry for the way I acted.” The words came out rather quickly, and he was unable to hide the shakiness in his tone. If he didn’t get it out all at once and fast, it’d be done through tears, which he was already struggling to bite back.

The younger Italian shook his head and fiddled with the fabric in his hands. “But you were right, I should’ve supported you… I do support you, in anything you do, Gigi. And…” He trailed off for a moment, before shifting his gaze to what was in his hands, letting the material unwravel to reveal a new Paris Saint-Germain shirt. And not just any shirt, but one that had BUFFON plastered in large white letters across the back of it, as well as a large number 1. “…And I’m ready to be your most loyal fan here at Paris Saint-Germain too, if you’ll have me… I’m ready to leave everything behind to move here with you. I can’t be without you, Gigi, these past few months have been hell, and they’ve made me realize… They’ve made me realize I’ve found my other half in you. And, well… I can’t function without my other half, you know. Clearly you can’t do too well yourself, either.” He gestured, and Gigi laughed. The first real laugh he’d had in awhile.

“Is it that obvious?” Gigi tried to joke with him, but truthfully it sounded forced because he was on the verge of tears. He was right, he really couldn’t function without his other half. Losing his lover sent him spiraling again in a way he hadn’t experienced, and he couldn’t deny that he was a little afraid. He quickly wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand in a futile attempt to hide his tears, however his lover saw right through it.

“It’s obvious… Very obvious, Gigi.” His lover answered in a gentle tone, moving the shirt over his shoulder and offering his hand to Gigi. “Why don’t we shave that god awful beard of yours and draw ourselves a nice bath, hmm?”

Gigi only nodded, but rather than moving back into the house, he just shuffled forward and into his lover’s arms again. All it took was a simple embrace such as this one, and it felt as though the weight of the world had been lifted off his shoulders. The younger Italian could even feel Gigi relax and loosen up in his arms as he sniffled and struggled to hold back tears.

His lover shushed him gently, rubbing his back, however. “None of that… We’re back, and soon you’ll be taking Paris by storm.” He cooed.

Pressing his face into his lover’s shoulder, Gigi let out a sigh. “We… ” He murmured, pausing for a moment, before he spoke in a hushed tone, only for the other man to hear.

“Marry me first.”

[omgktlouchheim]

Word Vomit Wednesday - Stop Kavanaugh

 Welcome to Word Vomit Wednesday! A series of blog posts where I attempt to process thoughts and feelings, usually about a specific topic from current events that I, and sometimes the rest of the Internet, ruminate obsessively about. All thoughts/opinions/experiences are my own (unless otherwise indicated); I don’t claim anything that I write to represent anyone other than myself.

CW: Sexual Assault

As with pretty much all the news about our current state of affairs, the Kavanaugh nomination and hearings for SCOTUS have been extremely triggering and stressful. Even before Professor Christine Blasey Ford came forward with her story of being sexually assaulted by Kavanaugh, this nomination indicated an even darker America to come, as if the one we’re in now isn’t dire enough for women, the LGBTQ+ community, and BIPOC. And, as with so much of the news we’ve been contending with since 2016, I’ve felt a need to pull back from watching it, reading tweets and articles almost ritualistically just so I can take care of myself physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Staying on top of everything going on takes a tremendous toll and I constantly find myself thinking about how the well-beings of marginalized people are constantly looked over and dismissed.

This came up for me again the other night when, after having a pretty relaxed evening watching The Emmy’s with my parents, my dad turned the news back on and that sense of simmering rage and hypervigilance that I’ve learned to just deal with existing as a woman in the world, came bubbling right to the surface. I had to leave almost immediately because that was not the way I wanted to end my day feeling. If I’m going to be active and helpful in any way, even in small ways like writing this blog, I need to be able to sleep at night. But one thing that came up in the few minutes of watching the Kavanaugh coverage that I have not been able to stop thinking about was a quote from someone in the nominee’s camp saying something along the lines of not even knowing the story or who the woman could possibly have been until Ford revealed herself. This narrative is offered over and over again as a way to dismiss women when they come forward in these situations. A narrative that continues to portray women and our experiences as insignificant.

That killed me. The fact that this woman not only went through a trauma where her personhood was never considered from the get-go, has been affected by it for decades, is risking her life for this country (she and her family have since had to leave their home due to death threats) to share her story and make her identity known, to again, be told by men she is not worthy of consideration is devastating. And that seems to be a major key in all of this. Women are not considered. At all. Kavanaugh probably didn’t recall the assault because he got what he wanted out of it. He never considered Ford or her feelings, needs, or wants. He couldn't have cared less. He still couldn’t care less. The GOP, who should care about putting an alleged rapist on the bench of the highest court in the land, but instead made a publicity stunt of having 65 women sign a document (all but two seemingly had no idea what they had signed) that stated they would vouch for Kavanaugh, definitely don’t see a problem if they’re willing to manipulate women to get their man through the confirmation process.

I saw a tweet the other day from @laurenthehough, who shared this sentiment: “You know what would be fucking weird to hear? ‘I did that. It was fucking terrible. I’m sorry. I did years of therapy and soul searching and work and I changed my behavior. I can’t change what I did. But I made damn sure I never did it again.’ Why is that never the statement?”

Why is that never the statement? I cannot tell you how healing it would be if those were the statements that we started hearing. Real accountability. Real apologies. Real work put into an individual’s growth and education. Would those statements start solving all of these problems? No, of course not. But they would at least indicate that these people recognize that the women they’ve hurt are people. And that they understand that they have caused harm, sometimes a lifetime’s worth, to another person. That would create a powerful shift. Because one of the reasons we don’t hear these statements is because these people don’t consider what they do to women to be of any significance. That unless you’re related to a woman by blood or marriage or if you find them attractive, they don’t matter. It’s probably inconceivable to Kavanaugh and his ilk that a situation that was so forgettable for him because “boys will be boys,” had been burned into Ford’s mind. She never mattered to him, he felt entitled to her and her body, and our culture allowed that.

As I’m writing this, I realize that I will be posting it on arguably the most important Jewish holiday of the year, Yom Kippur. Which couldn’t be more fitting for this topic. Yom Kippur translates to Day of Atonement. It comes ten days after Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, wherein those ten days are meant to give us time to reflect on the past year. All the great and terrible experiences and the things we wish we did better or hadn’t done at all. What we are sorry about and who we need to apologize to and when Yom Kippur finally arrives we are supposed to take full accountability for ourselves. Now, one day to hold ourselves accountable for our actions (as well as inactions) and how they’ve caused harm and suffering to others and actively make amends is not enough. Especially if the damage we have caused has had a prolonged traumatizing effect on person’s life and livelihood. Going to shul once a year and reciting prayers are not going to fix things or provide the healing that’s actually necessary. But at least the holiday is there to jumpstart the conversation. To hopefully get us thinking outside of ourselves and give the apologies that we wished we’d been given when we’ve been wronged and make necessary and lasting changes.

I’m pretty sure Brett Kavanaugh is not Jewish, probably has no idea what Yom Kippur is, and, like most cis-het white males, doesn’t think he's done anything wrong and that he's entitled to whatever the fuck he wants. But for those men who do genuinely want to make amends and be better people and because we very rarely have a framework for how to get started with that, I’m going to offer a few suggestions (mostly for men to combat rape culture and inequality, though some of these skills definitely apply in many other areas and for most people) on some things to start focusing on that would be incredibly helpful. This is by no means a complete and comprehensive list, and there is no significance to the order, but a few things to get people started.

Listen to women and believe them. We know our own experiences, so please do not come at us with “what if she’s lying” bullshit. There’s a reason men are conditioned to believe that women are liars and that reason is to keep women oppressed. Learning how to listen, really listen, is one of the most valuable lessons anyone can learn. When you check your egos at the door, unlearn your social conditioning, and learn to center and hold space for someone else and their feelings, especially when they’re in need, it validates their humanity. We all need support and knowing someone is in our corner who’s not going to question our motives, interrupt us as we process whatever we’re going through in the moment, or lash out at us is basic common decency that we are rarely shown, but (as women) are expected to provide for others. It’s also invaluable for the listener because you will get to understand someone else’s world a little better and hopefully gain more perspective on the one you inhabit.

Start asking “What do you need” and “How can I help you.” Practice those questions so much until they become second nature. No one is asking you to bend over backwards for other people, only you know what your limits are and it’s your responsibility to be honest about what you can or cannot do, but this is another small gesture, just like listening, that goes a long way. On the flip side of that, asking for help when you’re struggling is an important skill as well. People will typically show up for you if you give them a chance, especially if you’ve shown up for them.

Hold other men exhibiting toxic behavior accountable. Show by example how a good man acts and let those who are extremely problematic know that you see them and what they're doing and are not here for it. Men listen to other men (bc toxic masculinity, but that’s a post for another day), so you pointing out that some behavior or thought-pattern is problematic or shameful is effective.

Vote for and support women. Not just the ones you’re related to or find attractive. If you can only make room for the former, you're only performing ally ship and you don’t actually support women.

Men built the glass ceiling, therefore it’s your job to dismantle it. Do not put the extra weight of men’s work on marginalized folx who are already carrying and navigating too much.

Go inward and start tackling your own internalized patriarchal proclivities. Do your due diligence to understand toxic masculinity, sexist/racist double standards, and your privilege and the ways in which you help perpetuate a system that gives you benefits at the expense and suffering of others. Ways to start doing that: go to therapy, get a group of your boys together and actually start talking about and identifying your feelings and asking each other questions, read books or watch films/tv by people who come from very different backgrounds than you. You’ll hopefully learn a lot about yourself and the world. And you’ll learn how to take responsibility for your own feelings in a healthier way, rather than putting and projecting that emotional labor on the women and other marginalized folx in your lives.

If you have realized that you have done something wrong or hurtful or it was brought to your attention that you have, you may want to get defensive. Acknowledge the feelings you're having to yourself, but to the appropriate parties try saying something like this: “I did that. It was fucking terrible. I’m sorry. I did years of therapy and soul searching and work and I changed my behavior. I can’t change what I did. But I made damn sure I never did it again.” If you haven’t done the work yet, don’t say you have unless you do actually plan on following through. And then follow through. These are also great growth opportunities for utilizing those new listening and offering assistance tools from #s 1 and 2.

*BONUS*: Do not, under any circumstances, attempt ANY of the above with ulterior motives. You do not get a gold star for being a “good guy.” This is just how people should be treated. Decently, respectfully, and without any expectation of owing you anything in return.

Obviously, this is a very simplified list but when you start opening the door to one of these items, more and more doors begin to appear. As hard as it may be at times, it is worthwhile work that benefits everyone. Also, if you’ve made it this far, please call your senators and tell them to not confirm Kavanaugh to SCOTUS. We, the people, deserve someone on the bench who considers all of us.

Katie Louchheim seriously doesn’t know how she functions on a daily basis with all this bullshit. CALL YOUR SENATORS TO #StopKavanaugh: 202-224-3121.

[gotgifsandmusings]

the way you guys handled the racism part of the podcast was just. awful i couldnt even finish the rest of the podcast bc i was so offput. expected better from you :/

I’m so sorry to hear that, seriously.

I don’t want to hide behind excuses; if our tone or words were hurtful, that’s the way of it, and all I can do is apologize for it and learn why. It was not our intent, and as we said at the start of it, we’re more than open to a dialogue.

I’ve received positive and negative feedback for pretty much every portion of the podcast, however (it’s not like “oh yay, person X agrees so we’re fine!” or anything, of course), and I do think there’s some value in digging into that.

Julia and I tend to be more forgiving of Martin, not that we’re asking anyone else to be. And given the virulence with which we go after D&D, I understand how hypocritical this can come across as, and how frustrating this can be too. But the reason we are is basically two-fold:

One is that we believe there’s a value to his books. Now, there’s also a value to the political discussion on Bill Maher’s show, for example, but yet amazingly, decent political commentary shouldn’t come with a side-serving of Islamophobia. I don’t watch his show, so why should I accept and praise books that don’t handle race well? That don’t handle female sexuality that amazingly, particularly in the cause of wlw scenes? That oftentimes do feel like the sexual violence could be easily toned down, or it’s unnecessarily gendered, or it does fall into unfortunate patterns with things like dead mothers?

The answer to that ties into the second reason, which is that his pattern is getting better. FeastDance felt more thoughtful, felt like there was more of an emphasis on female and other marginalized voices, and it felt like there was great intentionality on Martin’s part to do so. I haven’t read all his interviews; I can’t guess at what’s in his head beyond what his body of work shows us. But you can bet that if he was coming across as someone who was unwilling to reflect and engage with his own shortcomings, I wouldn’t be as invested.

I could be wrong about him. I’ve said this a lot before, but I could be really, really wrong. For now, he has my benefit of the doubt. I’m not asking you to bestow yours.

Back to the problems at hand though, and the value of his books. No, they’re not perfect at all. There’s a lot of issues, and these are issues that a more intersectional author likely wouldn’t have. To be perfectly honest, I think we’re starting to have a tendency of expecting perfection in every area from our media now. While I love that we’re finally in a place where our cultural dialogue is pushing for the change we want, and that storytellers are actually listening (look at like, Clexacon’s mere existence, for instance), I think this can easily become a double edged sword, where you’ve got the fandom raising pitchforks about Steven Universe not doing well with butch representation.

ASOIAF is no SU. It’s a book series written by a white dude in his 60s that spans twenty years. Which is why Julia and I put so much stock into the pattern and direction the books seem to be headed, because our social dialogue shifts so much. Well, depressingly not as much as it should, but I think it’s hard to deny that there is far less tolerance for bullshit in our media, and far more expectations of representational media that are not just once again glorifying the white male lens. 

I don’t believe the book series simplistically does that at all. I find there to be feminist takeaways in Martin’s critique of the patriarchy, and in the way Martin holds up a lens to the bullshit assumptions by this society, which is one uncomfortably reflective of our own history (though certainly not highly accurately so). I wouldn’t say my willingness is to forgive the issues in the books, but more like say, “these are here, these are problems, but I still find this text valuable. I still find the close-POV different and worthwhile.”

I can’t speak for Julia, but I can at least say this is what we had hoped to convey in the podcast. I believe we failed spectacularly. I think our tendency not to plan or overly structure our episodes went heavily against us here. Everything we were saying was in a larger context of “and this is a problem,” but wow we really didn’t make that clear.

What we did was basically raise the problems in turn, talk about what we think his intent was and what its function in the story has been, and then conclude on “this could have been better,” which after you know…like ten minutes of what probably sounds like rationalizations was not exactly going to come across as particularly meaningful. Had we structured more, I think we could have been clearer about “and it did not land.”

Showing Dany as completely unable to comprehend the political situation she was in, and being over her head with the complexity, did *not* require a lack of Essosi POVs, even if we suspect that’s partially why Martin made that choice, for instance.

But of course that didn’t come across, especially when there were some downright flippant things said that we also didn’t clarify. Like Julia mentioning she didn’t want a Dothraki POV, probably because it’d be very close to one as distressingly violent and patriarchal as Vic, which is simply unpleasant to read (and I’m also not sure I agree; I would have loved Dany eating the heart from a POV of someone in the Dosh Khaleen, for instance).

We know each other well, and we know the intent and place we’re coming from when we’re saying something, so I think that led to us not explicating stuff that absolutely needed to be explicated. Again, there’s no excuse. I wish we had planned  and presented everything differently, and it seems pretty obvious now how badly we needed to do that. I’ve learned a lot just in the past day, and all I can do is try to be better.

However, I will say…I suspect there’s also going to be content disagreements in the conclusions Julia and I land on. I’ve seen this with the fandom dialogue about the issues of sexism in the books before, and we’ve often received criticism for defending how he writes the patriarchy and women. Or for how women in the past basically are these pure, idealized victims, or they’re forgotten. We believe that’s to a point most of the time, that being one that provides a fuller picture of Westeros’s bullshit patriarchy (unnammed Mama Martell as an exception because there’s no reason for that at all), but we know it’s a point that doesn’t land.

Then there’s stuff like Arianne’s ‘hypersexuality’, which I simply don’t agree with. In my view, and something Gretchen and I were just discussing, Cersei is far more sexualized (she just tends to view sex from a manipulative standpoint always, instead of deriving pleasure from it, Jaime aside which is clearly unhealthy), and the degree to which this is a problem for a Dornish POV to have these traits (which I think is played up in the fandom) is one where I part ways with a lot of people. I can’t answer how I’d feel about it if I weren’t white, so I do my best to acknowledge that lens whenever I can. But in general, from what I can tell, my lens is also just a bit less Doylist than where some land.

And that’s fine, too. We’re all just engaging with the books how we like to do, and taking from it what’s there for us. There’s no objective takeaways, and not to belabor the point, but I could be so wrong about these books.

Why am I all Doylist with D&D? Because Watsonian analysis is useless in GoT, sure, but because they’ve violated my trust and my benefit of the doubt so thoroughly. I’m not there with Martin, and maybe that’s a problem. I suspect I might even be too Watsonian for my own good because of how engaged I find myself with certain aspects. Half of why we recorded that podcast was to kind of slap ourselves in the face with some Doylist realities, but I do now think the tone ended up being too dismissive, and I don’t feel good about it.

Anyway, this is just a super long-winded apology, as well as a meek explanation I suppose. Certainly not an excuse. This episode was requested a lot for us, probably because of how defensive of the books we get, and I feel like in our attempt to talk every angle of the issue, we ended up just coming across as doubling down on that defense. Moving forward you can bet your ass I’m going to be far more cognizant of this.

What’s funny is, feeling defensive actually wasn’t my experience at all recording it. Hell, even just pulling your asks for it, I was like, “wow this all really sucks,” and found myself getting a good deal more nervous for TWOW coming out. Because…god…I think I might be wrong. I’m back in that place I was in during season 5 where I was wondering if Sansa was going to get raped by LF (obviously a different context than the show), or if we’re not supposed to see Tyrion’s misogyny.

I’m not ready to give up on Martin yet, but I’m sure as hell not asking anyone else to forgive him. And if nothing else, I know now that at least a few takeaways we had were certainly not his intent, but the result of our own engagement and projections onto the media. I think I might be wrong (and where’s TWOW).

[myprofessionalpractice]

a few virtual tours, a few real tours

In this strange and unusual time of lockdown for the world, one of the biggest losses to culture and society is that of galleries and museums. They are widely visited daily, across the globe, allowing generations of people to learn about and appreciate works of art and aspects of history. 

Despite this, we also live in a time where people can connect very easily online. Although some people often find this tiresome or useless, instead believing people should go out and see the world for themselves, it has proved insanely useful with current events: many galleries and museums have found a new way to use this to their advantage. 

Seeing as we cannot make it to our Design Connections event and talk to artists and practitioners about their current work, I thought it would be enlightening to look back on some of the works I’ve seen before that are of historical and cultural importance, and perhaps discuss why this is and how it came to be. Also, with the additional help of some of the virtual tours now on offer online, I can take a look at some works I have yet to see, and examine those too - perhaps offering insight on why I wish to visit them. 

London, April 2018

One of the most well-known galleries in the world is The National Gallery, situated in London’s Trafalgar Square. It is home to many renowned artworks by lots of famous artists. I have been a few times, most recently in April 2018.

I love the National Gallery not only for the art it houses, but for the architecture. It’s one of the best places in London just to sit, maybe near your favourite painting, and watch the world go by as tourists skim past art by some of the most renowned artists in the world.

Every month the National Gallery list on their website a ‘picture of the month’, one picture from their gallery, to spotlight. April 2020′s picture of the month is one I actually took a picture of myself, in the same month two years ago. It is Akseli Gallen-Kallela’s Lake Keitele, painted in 1905 as he was recovering from malaria. Lake Keitele is in central Finland, and Gallen-Kallela, a Finnish artist, was captivated by the view. He painted it multiple times. 

The painting is captivating, too, a mix of bright reflections and dark, sombre shadows. The National Gallery website writes that “strips of steel-grey zigzag boldly across the surface of the lake. They capture the effects of wind moving across the water and the currents beneath”. Gallen-Kallela imagined these to be down to a passing boat. The artist expressed his love of Finland through art, in a time when Finland was trying to gain independence from Russia.

Below is one of my favourite paintings of all time, displayed in the National Gallery. It was painted in 1889 by Vincent Van Gogh, one of the most famous artists of all time, and is called A Wheatfield, with Cypresses. Whilst a patient at Saint-Paul de Mausole, a psychiatric facility in the south of France, Van Gogh painted several versions of the same wheatfield. The one at the National Gallery is the final version.

Arguably, the vast majority of Van Gogh’s artworks have captured the hearts of the world, long after his death. He paints rhythmically, with swirling brush strokes that capture the movement of nature. This particular painting boasts this effect beautifully; vincentvangogh.org notes how the Cypresses stand vertical and contrast the many horizontal aspects of the work. They also note more contrasts, such as the contrast of warm colours versus cool, or sky versus land. One quote of theirs I particularly enjoyed: the work is dubbed “restless beyond measure”, which is a common feature in Van Gogh’s work. This is a perfect example. 

Athens, September 2019

Athens is home to the Acropolis, and subsequently the Parthenon, which is probably the most iconic imagery associated with Ancient Greece. It has been a source of endless fascination for centuries, across the world. 

Athen’s The Acropolis Museum is a much more recent museum, opened in 2009, filled to the brim with Ancient Greek artefacts excavated from the Acropolis itself. It was purpose-built to house everything found on the hill and surroundings, and there are plenty of them. 

In fact, the whole of Athens seems dedicated to its history, as even the Metro stations exhibit artefacts dug up in their construction. 

The Acropolis Museum is built over yet another archeological site, an ancient neighbourhood complete with a drainage system and bathhouses. 

Much of the floor in the museum itself is made of glass, allowing the endless stream of visitors to view the site beneath. At the entrance to the museum there is a large drop where the remains of a bathhouse are in view. There’s also a walkway under the museum where visitors can tour the archeological site, and it is incredibly odd but also kind of touching to be immersed in ruins where people actually lived, thousands of years ago. 

The Acropolis Museum, as by name, is a museum, rather than a gallery. However one area of the museum, the Archaic Acropolis Gallery, is full to the brim with sculptures and statues. Archaic refers to the period from 8th century BC until the end of the Persian Wars, or around 480 BC. This period saw immense changes in Greek language, society, art, architecture, and politics, due to the increasing population and usage of trade. 

The exhibits in the Archaic Acropolis Gallery are beautifully presented on large white podiums. It is strictly no photographs, so I took none of my own (the one below is from the museum’s website). This way of exhibiting offers tourists a way of viewing the artefacts from all sides. The gallery is lit mostly using natural light through giant windows, and as the light shifts outside, the way the statues can be viewed changes too. 

Also open is the museum’s Parthenon Gallery, seen below.  It houses many of the famous Elgin Marbles, which were originally part of the Parthenon and other buildings on and surrounding the Acropolis. Most of the Marbles were removed (or stolen) by Lord Elgin who moved them to England in 1812, where they were bought by the British Museum. There has been much international pressure for them to be returned to their rightful place, especially now the Acropolis Museum houses the rest of them, but this is yet to happen. The Parthenon Gallery in Athens leaves spaces in the exhibition for the stolen pieces and displays casts of others, so it’s easily visible where the originals should be.

The sculptures once displayed on the east pediments of the Parthenon tell the tale of the birth of the goddess Athena, while those on the west depict a battle between Athena and the god Poseidon to determine who would be the patron deity of Athens (LiveScience). Although the Marbles themselves and the stories they tell are beautiful and important to Ancient Greek history, much of their coverage and popularity worldwide is down to the repatriation debate.

I adored Athens. I’ve had an interest in Ancient Greece since I was very young, and of course the capital city is the best place to visit for this purpose. It was such a joy to walk alongside the Acropolis, or to turn random corners and see a part of ancient history in the middle of the street. 

Many people share this with me. For an incredibly long time Greece was the leading nation in politics, art, philosophy, society and culture, as well as the birthplace of democracy. Athens, as the country’s capital city, was an obvious epicentre. History.com write that “over the centuries, the Acropolis was many things: a home to kings, a citadel, a mythical home of the gods, a religious centre and a tourist attraction.” All this has led to a fascination among historians and tourists alike. 

The Parthenon has been standing for over 2,000 years. It has obviously deteriorated over time, but it’s still there, and is now being renovated in a multi-million euro project. It is visible far and wide in Athens, and is an iconic symbol of not only Greek antiquity but ancient history as a whole. 

It’s no wonder why the Acropolis Museum is so immensely popular. Stacked full of artefacts and pieces of history, it’s like stepping into the past. 

The museum is part of Google’s Arts and Culture galleries project and therefore can be visited online, too. 

Paris, January 2020

The Musée de Louvre is one of the most famous museums in the world, and for good reason. I loved wandering the halls on my trip to Paris, even when the fire alarm went off for a solid twenty minutes and not one person left in haste (truly, truly French). 

Like the Acropolis Museum, the Louvre is more of a museum than a gallery, and there are hundreds and hundreds of artefacts at the Louvre. However, one painting is the Louvre’s pride and joy. People visit the museum specifically to see Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, easily the most famous painting in the world. There is a carefully guarded and staffed queue system you must stand in to view the painting up close, and even then it is behind bulletproof glass (in 1956, somebody threw acid at her!). 

The Mona Lisa is a perfect example of an image or painting captivating the world, and is clearly of great historical and cultural importance. Plenty of people before me, with far better knowledge and understanding, have tried to describe why exactly the Mona Lisa is so popular. Encyclopaedia Britannica’s article “Why Is the Mona Lisa So Famous?” theorises there is no single explanation, but there are plenty of reasons why the painting draws thousands of ardent admirers daily. 

Clearly, the painting is very realistic and displays great technical ability. There are plenty of technically good paintings, however - in fact, the Mona Lisa is surrounded by them at the Louvre, and in the many galleries of Paris.

It could be the painting’s journey that proved it to be so popular. It became more and more well known as it travelled around France, first in the court of Frances I, King of France and part of the royal collection. In the French Revolution the collection was claimed as the property of the people, and it was only after a period in Napoleon’s bedroom that it was given to the Louvre.

The mystery of the painting’s subject has allowed the public to project an identity onto the Mona Lisa. Scholars theorise the portrait is of Lisa Gherardini, wife of the Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, but there’s no proof of this as no record of a commission can be found. The speculation surrounding the painting is as much a part of culture than the painting itself. 

It’s even possible that the Mona Lisa is possible because in 1911, it was stolen by Italian immigrant Vincenzo Peruggia. He was tried and imprisoned before he could sell the painting, which proved impossible due to its popularity. The ensuing media frenzy cemented the portrait into popular culture, where it has stayed for over a century. 

Subsequent tours of the USA and Japan have helped it gain worldwide fame, as well as pop artists using her likeness to challenge what it means to make art and worship it. With the emergence of computers and the internet, the Mona Lisa began to be endlessly reproduced and again rose to immense popularity, to the point where I asked my sister, who has no interest in art, to name a painting - her reply was, naturally, “the Mona Lisa”.

In all honesty, the Mona Lisa is obviously part of history and I am very happy to have been able to visit her, but the Louvre is so expansive and full of interesting and beautiful things that she might even have been a little underwhelming. After all, you can't get too close, and she is behind glass. Perhaps more interesting was the painting she is facing, if only for the sheer size of it. The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese (1563) depicts the biblical story of the Marriage at Cana, at which Jesus turns water into wine. It is the biggest painting at the Louvre, yet one which people often miss, what with the excitement of the painting it faces. 

The Venus de Milo is also housed at the Louvre. It is an Ancient Greek statue thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch. It is believed to be a depiction of Aphrodite, but could also be of the sea goddess Amphitrite. Amphitrite was venerated on the Greek island Milos, where the statue was discovered in 1820. The statue was built from two blocks of marble and is comprised of several pieces all joined together, fixed with vertical pegs. The Louvre writes that this was common in Greek sculpture, especially in the Cyclades around 100BC, when the Venus de Milo is thought to have been sculpted. The statue is named after the Roman name for Aphrodite, ‘Venus’, and the island of Milos. Her arms were never found.

The Smithsonian note that the Venus de Milo is the most famous sculpture in the world, and “after the Mona Lisa, the most famous work of art in the world”. Despite many sculptures like it, and most sculptures from this period looking incredibly similar, she is immediately recognisable due to her missing arms. It’s probable that with her arms, the Venus de Milo would be way less popular. 

She is posed in an ‘S’ curve, a feature traditional in Ancient Greek and Roman sculpture. The technique allows a more realistic distribution of weight. My Modern Met theorise she was likely “colourfully painted and adorned with jewellery, though no pigment or metal remain on the marble today”. The Louvre acknowledge that holes remain where the statue was originally adorned in metal jewellery. 

Bradley Weber, Wikimedia Commons

Bob Duggan writes in his article “How the Venus de Milo Changed Female Beauty” that female nudity was not common in art and sculpture in Ancient Greece, whilst male nudity was common due to the lack of clothing in sport and competition. It wasn’t until 350 BC that Praxiteles began to sculpt the female form, and even then, the sculptures were rarely nude, instead draped in fine clothes that hinted at their outline. Venus de Milo comes way after Praxiteles, but clings onto this trend with a draped lower half. 

Like the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo has become a staple of classical art and an iconic representation of sculpture and Greek antiquity. It can be found everywhere, including one particular episode of ‘The Simpsons’ in 1994.

Screencap via Tumblr.

Also like the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo owes much of her popularity to modern art and propaganda: in fact, a specific propaganda campaign by the French in 1821, when it arrived at the Louvre. They were incredibly excited by her arrival, as the British had just bought the Elgin Marbles ripped from the Parthenon, and the Apollo Belvedere was returned to the Vatican. France were in need of an exhibit from classical Greece and, like magic, along came the Venus de Milo. However, the Venus de Milo was actually sculpted half a century after Greece’s classical age, and the Louvre's director Forbin allegedly hid her base to hide this fact.

The Art Minute write that “surely, the Venus de Milo is idealised: the features on her face are symmetrical, her breasts are small, her hips are wide, and her body is fleshy and soft”. She is the perfect example of beauty in Greece’s classical era, much changed from then to now, and offers us insight into female beauty in Ancient Greece. This was clearly their ideal if the goddess of love, beauty and sexuality was sculpted this way. 

The article also says that “her twisted posture invites viewers to walk around all sides of her magnificent figure in order to see every curve and bump in her lovely form”, describing exactly what it’s like to be in her presence. Venus de Milo is 6′8″, and this affects her presence greatly also. Speaking from experience, it truly affects you to turn the corner and see her towering above you, knowing you are in the presence of part of history. 

The Louvre was one of the best places I’ve ever been, and certainly one of my favourite things in Paris. It was a real bucket list moment. If you’re not lucky enough to visit the Louvre in real life, you can do it through a screen too.

Musée d’Orsay

I didn't have time to visit the Musée d’Orsay when I was in Paris, but it would be first on my list if I were to return. It houses the largest collection of impressionist and post-Impressionist masterpieces in the world, mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, and subsequently is home to many of my favourite artists and paintings. 

Google Arts & Culture have many virtual tours available, and the Musée d’Orsay is one of them. I was delighted to find out you can essentially stand in front of some of the most famous paintings in the world, only from home, maybe in your pyjamas with a cup of tea. 

Above is The Ballet Class (or La Classe de Danse), by French artist Edgar Degas. Degas is famous for his depictions of ballerinas, as over half of his works contain dancers. The most notable of his works is the sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen, the original of which is exhibited in the National Gallery of Art in NYC. Although Degas is a noted Anti-Semite and objectively cruel person, when it comes to his work I deploy a philosophy of separating the art from the artist, as I have always loved his delicate portrayals of young ballerinas in their studio.

The accompanying information given with The Ballet Class by the Musée d’Orsay reads: “more than the stage performance and the limelight, it was the training and rehearsals that interested him. Here the class is coming to an end – the pupils are exhausted, they are stretching, twisting to scratch their backs, adjusting their hair or clothes, an earring, or a ribbon, paying little heed to the inflexible teacher, a portrait of Jules Perrot, a real-life ballet master”.

This painting is captivating perhaps due to the theory of voyeurism. As the viewer, we are looking in on a scene captured from real life, without the people in it having any knowledge we are there. We have an insight into a practice most people don't see, especially people like me who cannot dance at all. 

One reason why I've always wanted to visit the Musée d’Orsay is to see some of the paintings by Claude Monet. Many, many people hold Monet in high regard, listing him as one of their favourite artists, and I’m among them. 

Monet bought a house in Giverny, France, in 1893. From then on, the house and its gardens became his main source of inspiration, mostly including the water lilies he planted in his water garden. Many of his paintings focus on these - the series consists of around 250 paintings - and they have become his most famous works, displayed in museums around the world. 

The above painting, Blue Water Lilies (or Nymphéas bleus) focuses on a very cropped, specific area of Monet’s water garden. It features few details, instead using a very abstract brush stroke and instead using colour to hint at shapes and forms. The Musée d’Orsay write: “never was the artist's brushstroke so free, so detached from the description of forms. A close-up view of the canvas gives a feeling of total abstraction, because the brushstrokes are stronger than the identification of the plants or their reflections”.

As well as this, the gallery also suggests why the painting, and those much like it, are so captivating: “the viewer has to make a constant visual and mental effort to piece together the landscape suggested in the painting”. The paintings that we really have to think about are often the ones that stick in our minds. 

Although I will make it my goal to see these paintings in real life too, I found them through Google Arts & Culture’s virtual tour.

Musée de l’Orangerie 

Also the home to many paintings from Monet’s Water Lilies series is the Musée de l’Orangerie. Although the museum displays works by other artists like Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume, they are most famous for their Monet collection.

As part of his Water Lilies series, Monet painted several murals. During the 1920s, two oval rooms were built at the Musée de l’Orangerie to house eight of them, and they are still there today. The above is The Water Lilies - Morning. Together, the murals show the passage of time through the day. The light shifts and changes throughout all eight, as the museum notes that “as of 1886, Monet became more interested in representing his garden according to the rythm of light variations”.

Monet’s wild popularity may be down to pure aesthetics. He painted beautiful paintings, beautiful scenes that were pleasing to the eye, using colourful palettes and free and loose brush strokes. It could be that the water lilies themselves aren't the reason why the painting are so popular. Monet ‘zoomed in’, as such, on the water itself, cropping the edges and removing the image of any horizon or skyline.

Thames and Hudson say “the works become less and less about constituent elements and orientation, and more about the energetic gestures of paintbrush and pigment... there is no frame, no single resting place for the eye, only an immersion in planes and passages of colour”.

There’s an element of freedom, and clear adoration from Monet for his surroundings, which maybe we share with him whilst viewing. The artist himself said “the water-flowers themselves are far from being the whole scene. Really, they are just the accompaniment. The essence of the motif is the mirror of water, whose appearance alters at every moment.”

I toured the Musée de l’Orangerie and the Water Lilies murals using the same method as done previously, here.

More to See

If you too are stuck indoors in 2020, or are finding this post in the future and enjoy sitting looking at paintings from the comfort of your own home, you can find lots of other virtual tours below. 

The National Gallery, London, UK

National Portrait Gallery, London, UK

The British Museum, London, UK

Vatican Museums, Vatican City, Italy 

The Uffizi Galleries, Florence, Italy 

Picasso Museum, Barcelona, Spain

The Guggenheim, New York City, USA

The Museum of Modern Art, New York City, USA

[extemporaneousmusings]

There’s this page from a manuscript that’s in LACMA’s collections I’ve been thinking about for a good year. I discovered it when watching a GettyTalks livestream last summer by the GoT costume designer. I kind of forget the context in which she discussed it, but it totally captivated me and isn’t really relevant to the rest of her talk, as she moved on to discuss the more psychological and emotional underpinnings of costuming, rather than original source materials. I was so intrigued that I messaged the Getty tumblr that day to ask for the citation when I couldn’t find the image myself, and it’s just been floating around on my computer for the past year.

15th century Islamic manuscripts are worlds away from my wheelhouse, obviously, but there was something here that clung to the edges of an already fringe concept I had been toying with, that over the past year has become more and more relevant and pervasive.

The idea is hinged upon two major foci. The first is the development of the attribute through time, which is much more central to what I do...The basic synopsis of what I’d like to ultimately accomplish with my PhD is to try and connect grounded, known archaeological assemblages to contextualize and examine them within a more robust and experimental theoretical framework. The discussion of images is often divorced from their context, especially when it comes to more ephemeral objects like vases. (Note, this is the first time I’ve ever really used the word ephemeral in connection with vases, I need to think about this more!) The second is of the extended lifespan of Alexander the Great, both in images and texts, which persisted for thousands of years after his death, and was incorporated into many different cultural narratives.

An attribute, within iconography (which is at its very simplest, the study/interpretation of images and symbols) is an object or a shorthand that gives further information linked to the central character. Dionysos is one of the most attribute-laden lads in Greek art. To name a few, he has a kantharos, which is a specific type of drinking cup, leaves, wine, satyrs, maenads, which all in and of themselves, have nested attributes. 

Attic black-figure vase depicting Dionysos and a few of his typical attributes. (Musée de Louvre, MNE 938)

Athena has her owl, and gorgon head on her shield. Zeus has thunderbolts. All of these are small visually represented objects, yet convey a great amount of culturally loaded information. I’m just speaking from the Greek tradition at the moment, but iconography and attributes exist across time and space. Thor has his hammer, which is an extremely potent symbol that conveys a lot more than just his favorite accessory. The Statue of Liberty has a torch and books. You get the point.

Attributes have not remained the same, in terms of what they represent or how they are interpreted, throughout history. Narrowing back down to the Greek world, the Hellenistic period brought about enormous cultural shifts in nearly every arena, and art was one of them. It hasn’t really been explored through such a lens yet, to my knowledge, but the very power and intent behind attributes shifted dramatically. I am super intrigued in trying to find a way to trace the development of the attribute, and see how and when its use began to change.

Here we get to the point of contact between the two ideas. The Hellenistic period is a broad, uneven, inelegant term to discuss a period of time directly impacted by the death of Alexander the Great and the aftermath of his political and military campaigns, but before the Roman Empire became the main cultural and political power. This is, of course, impossible to define, but in reductive academic short-hand refers to the years 323 BC- 31 AD. The Hellenistic period also considers a much broader geographic scope than is usually incorporated into classical scholarship in earlier periods, because Alexander conquered so much land, and Greek ideas were then transmitted in very different ways to a broader swath of people and cultures.

I’ve now reached the point where this gets beyond me, for the moment. I’m not an Hellenistic historian, and the political and military narrative of history during these years is a fucking quagmire. The art produced during this time-period in many ways reflects this time of upheaval and constant change, because it’s experimental, bizarre, and all over the place.

Alexander was a brilliant commander and political thinker. He curated his image and controlled its dissemination. The dude had a whole host of personally commissioned artists at his command who produced sculptures/coins/jewels depicting him that were somehow regulated and presented a unified front, despite the geographical breadth across which they worked and he travelled. (This is precisely why you can always identify sculptures of him, even hundreds of years after his death, because they were all produced using cookie-cutter templates.) He used attributes and his own image to influence politics in a way that hadn’t been done before, and this continues long after his death.* This is picked up and totally incorporated into Roman imperial politics and art further down the road. 

At the moment, this is my (utterly unsubstantiated) half-baked axis: I think that the attribute had been developing and shifting in use somewhat, but that Alexander radicalized what it was, and how it was used. THEREFORE, not only can one continue to trace how the attribute continues through and beyond Alexander in Greek&Roman art, but Alexander himself through time and cultures makes a fascinating case study of the attribute. (Maybe??? Or maybe this is just two separate things just barely linked??? I’m gonna try to explain the second branch more.)

Alexander was, obviously, a big fucking deal. He went a bunch of places and did a bunch of shit. As such, he was remembered and mythologized broadly, for many different reasons, in many different ways. His actions were incorporated into the narrative fabric of many cultures and societies. Before I watched this Getty talk I had NO IDEA that Alexander appears in the Quran. Fascinating!!

He appears in the Quran as Dhul-Qarnayn which means “The Two-Horned One” in English. Scholars don’t know exactly why, but have tentatively suggested that perhaps it is because Alexander was sometimes depicted on coins as having curling rams horns. This is super dope, and I totally wanna buy it and argue for it BECAUSE, his use of the rams horns on coinage was a direct attempt to assimilate himself within a blended Eastern/Egyptian mythology. The rams horns were an attribute of Ammon, an Egyptian deity who is often considered alongside/culturally synonymous to Zeus. So, it is possible that his name in the Quran and further Islamic tradition is a direct reference to the way he, and then his followers, manipulated attributes to accomplish political goals.

Tetradrachm of Lysimachus depicting Alexander with the horns of Ammon. British Museum 1919,0820.1

Along with being incorporated into the textual history of these diffuse cultures, he is also depicted visually in a whole host of new and evolving forms. I haven’t looked into the artistic depictions of Alexander once he becomes Dhul-Qarnayn, or Iskander (his Persian name), but I think that’s probably what I should do next. By the time it gets to the way-aforementioned manuscript page he is completely transformed iconographically speaking. In this illumination Alexander/Iskander is depicted (the solo figure on the right) as an official from the Chinese court, visiting the Kaaba. He is, therefore, culturally reborn, depicted as someone from China, interacting with one of the most sacred monuments of Islam. This is so far removed from his original context, and yet one can trace the path of his transmission through time and media to this point.

Iskander at the Kaaba. LACMA M.73.5.462

As I’ve said. I’m not sure how these two concepts (the attribute and ~Alexander through time~) necessarily link up, or if they even productively can. It’s possible they should both be pursued as separate, though theoretically related trains of thought. I was hoping, through the course of writing this, try and figure out some more/gain further clarity, but unfortunately I don’t think any of the resources I’ll need to really dig down on this are readily available online, as I have discovered a rather scanty digital trail, even about Alexander in his extended legendary life.

*27/4/19 this is pretty bold and I'm not sure I'm currently equipped to defend the statement against a critical attack but it still feels right. 

If you read all of this, hey thanks! This was an attempt to try and mitigate the fact that I’ve just been crawling up the walls of my own mind and it’s been getting pretty bad the past couple of days. Injuries are really difficult for everyone, but coming directly from a summer of mobility and hiking and freedom in the place I love most, despite the fact that I wasn’t even in the field very much, and being utterly and completely grounded has been a devastating and crippling (pun intended) adjustment. Sitting in one place has never been something I’ve been good at, and I am really only just coming back into my own mind as I ease off the pain meds. SO, this was an attempt, inspired muchly by @post--grad’s fucking brilliant and captivating newsletter to just try and muse and think without any pressure or connected to anything that has any current relevance to my scholarly production. 

Let me know what you think, really! Even if you’re someone for whom this is all totally new, bc let’s be real, most people don’t spend their lives thinking about objects and images and The Past. I wanna know what you think! Does it make sense? Is it weird? What was the most interesting thing about this, if at all?

[momentumgo]

Kelly Kurtz

Motion Designer http://www.kellykurtz.design/ Squamish, BC, Canada Age 38 She/Her

How did you get your start in motion design, animation, or whatever it is that you do?

I have a rather non-linear path to mograph, as many other people’s stories. I started off in a very different industry, but now (after 3 years) my love of the outdoors and motion design have (hopefully) come together.

I come from the adventure tourism industry of 12 years. I was an expedition guide in Canada’s North during the summers, an outdoor education instructor in the spring and fall working with grade 9 & 10’s, and during the winters I worked in Snow School at a local ski hill (Cypress Mountain) teaching ski lessons, supervising, and then in the last 5 years managing all the on snow operations for the department of 180 instructors.

I loved my time as a guide and have so many beautiful memories of guiding (canoeing, backpacking & rafting) as well as working in the ski industry for more than a decade. Guiding multi-day expeditions means you are away from home for months at a time, and your time in between trips is spent cleaning up and prepping for the next trip - which was exciting and worked for me in my 20’s but once I had done it for a decade I started to desire a shift. I had done a lot of photography during my guiding years and found myself up until 3am the night after trip editing photos because it was satisfying and challenging, I wondered if photography could be where my next path led.

I was always curious about design, especially graphic design. One day I met a woman who used to be a kayak guide for 6 years who went back to school to become a freelance graphic designer specializing in brand identity, had 2 young daughters whom she could spend more time with since leaving the guiding world and I saw a seed of possibility.

It took 3 years of thinking about making this shift, and jumping from one career to the next is not a decision to take lightly - but what ultimately pushed me over the edge was a 14 month head & neck injury that I sustained from a skiing accident in the winter of 2012/13.

As horrible and dark as head injuries are, there was a real silver lining in that experience as it became a catalyst for change for me. I applied to a few different art schools with some doodles that I did from when I had my concussion, (as well as some photography I took up during my guiding years), and to my surprise I was accepted into Vancouver Film School’s Digital Design program in the fall of 2015.

I initially was interested in web and app design, but in the first few weeks we worked on a small stop motion project and opened up After Effects and thought WOW - this stuff is amazing. Once we started learning Cinema 4D, and worked on a title sequence project my life really started to change, and that is how I quickly got hooked on Motion.

I really struggled to land a job after I graduated VFS, it took me 7 months to land a job and I felt forced to take it as it was the only job offer that I had, my funds were running out and I was in a depression. I stayed at that company for 10 months but it was very corporate and things didn’t move very fast. I felt like I wasn’t getting the growth I was desiring. I was constantly looking for something else.

I was approached by an advertising agency downtown about a motion design position they were opening up, so I jumped at the chance as I needed the change and was curious about the ad agency world. It was eye opening to work in an ad agency, but my gut told me I didn’t belong. 7 weeks into the job my producer blindsided me in a 1-on-1 meeting and told me she didn’t think I fit in here (first time I’d heard any feedback since being hired), and asked me to think about what I really wanted. Ouch. Unfortunately she was dead right, but it still felt soul crushing at the time. A few days later I handed in my resignation and decided to try freelancing instead of the endless search for the “right” full time job, and Vancouver can be pretty limited with motion design studios.

Freelance felt like a breath of fresh air, I could manage project the way that I wanted to, and mistakes were my own. I was freelance for most of 2018 and tho I had a steep learning curve, I enjoy many aspects of it. I also couldn’t help but think, I wish I had more experience and a larger network to lean on before hopping into freelance. I felt like I grew so much in terms of understanding business and the freelance game, but not as much growth as a designer. I craved to work with other motion designers and learn from them - a luxury that I had perhaps not realized I took for granted while going to school and learning from my very talented classmates.

Now my journey takes another shift as my dream company (Arc’teryx) has recently offered me a motion designer / video editor role that I start in a few weeks. The company is a high end technical outerwear company that I have adored for 20 years. It combines my love of the outdoors with design & video. So perhaps my personal and professional realms have just collided, I hope so as I’d like to be surrounded by like minded people who are passionate about similar things as I am.

How do you define success? What would success look like for you?

Success to me is being able to work with a synergetic team while creating compelling content that I am challenged and rewarded with while maintaining work life balance.

What are some best practices you use today?

Never. Stop. Learning.

Kick self doubt square in the balls. It will sneak up on you when you are least expecting it. EVERYONE goes through it, no one is immune.

Celebrate (and look for) your successes. No matter how small they are. This also helps with point #2

Take responsibility for your own journey. Sit down and write your goals out, give yourself targets to hit, and hold yourself accountable. So what if you can’t find a mentor, that shouldn’t stop you. Most mographers don’t have a mentor, only a lucky few.

How do you balance your work with your personal life? How do the two influence each other?

My work and personal life have always been very closely tied as my past can attest. I think part of the reason I really struggled in my first 2 full time positions as a motion designer was that my personal life was suffering. I was surrounded by people who didn’t go outside, who didn’t ski, who rarely exercised, who I just couldn’t connect with. And when you can’t connect with your team on a personal level, it’s hard to become a well oiled machine. For me, the two have to be very well aligned. Perhaps that is just my desire to have meaningful relationships, perhaps it is because the mountains have always been my first love, or perhaps I was never meant to separate the two.

When I take time to go out for a ski tour in the mountains, take a week off to disappear out of cell range to hang out with old friends in a cabin in the woods, I come back refreshed and feeling grateful for the time I just had. It is an opportunity to recharge and refocus.

How have you learned to practice self-care? What do you do to take care of yourself?

I used to be a workaholic when I was in the ski industry. I could never seem to catch up so I’d work long hours, not take care of myself, my stress levels were constantly running high. That’s when I made a mistake. One that resulted in my world coming to a grinding halt with a 14 month concussion, and it also left my team limping along for an entire season. Since then I’ve had no desire to be a full time workaholic. There is so much more to life. Family, personal, and time in the mountains.

So if I am not accelerating as fast as someone else, it’s because I’m playing the long game. While they are up at 1am watching tutorials I am sleeping because I want to be able to ski tour up 1000m to admire the view, and remind me of why I am alive. There is a culture within mograph that tells us we need to put in the time and practice to get better, and this is absolutely true. But the timeline that we all seem to hold ourselves to may not be the most realistic for staying healthy.

What advice do you have for those just starting out?

Be kind to yourself. Find out what motivates you and utilize that to manage your time and your priorities.

Take courses with School of Motion, Mograph Mentor, and Learn Squared.

Watch and do hella amounts of tutorials. If you are happy with the work you made with a tutorial, give the creator of the tutorial credit if you publish it online, but don’t claim that work as your own (I see this all the time, someone posts some work on Dribbble or Instagram and says they’ve been experimenting, but I know exactly what tutorial it was based on. If someone credits the tutorial maker, there is no harm done.)

Don’t use tutorials as your sole learning tool. Create personal projects, and don’t look at tutorials to carry you through it. Use experimentation while you have the luxury of time to work on that personal project. Your personal style will develop out of this, not out of tutorials. And consequently so will your confidence.

Listen to Podcasts (School of Motion, Mograph Mentor, Motion Hatch, Animalators, & The Futur).

Get out an network, physically and online. Both are important. Develop those relationships, they are everything in this industry

Go to 1 - 2 conferences per year, they are worth every penny. Get inspired, meet the people whose work you idolize, then use that to fuel your next sprint.

Create A LOT of work. Publish it.

Take care of yourself and stop judging yourself against others. You don’t know their journey, priorities, sacrifices or motivations.